


The Millennium Spork

by lucidscreamer



Series: The Spork 'Verse [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: 1970s references, 1980s references, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Mermaid, Alternate Universe - Not Human, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Ancient Egypt, Behind the Scenes, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Canon - Anime, Canon - Anime Dub, Canon - Manga, Crack, Duel Monsters, Fanon, Friendship, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, I mock because I love, In-Jokes, It's all Shadi's fault, Little Mermaid, Metafiction, Multiverse, No Sex, Parody, Platonic Soulmates, Possibly Pre-Slash, Puzzleshipping, SO MUCH SARCASM, Sarcasm, So many Mary Sues, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmates, Stealth Crossover, The Author Regrets Nothing, Timeline What Timeline, Unrequited Lust, alternate universe - bad fic, ancient egyptian spirits, bad spelling can save your life, crackfic, deliberately out of character, don't read this for plot it's all about the sarcasm, hikaris and yamis, inspired by badfic, puns, rating is for language, selectively omniscient POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucidscreamer/pseuds/lucidscreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thanks to the Plot Device Fairy (aka Shadi, aka Number One on Yami's Shit List), Yugi and friends encounter their badfic stand-ins, get roped into (among other things) a mermaid (er, merMAN) AU, and must battle the various and sundry evils of badly written fan fiction in their quest to find the ultimate power of the multiverse: the Millennium Spork.</p><p>Or, you know, just an excuse to write everyone wildly sarcastic and meta, and poke fun at some of the fic that has tried to melt my brain over the years.</p><p>Whichever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter the Idiots

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Yugioh is the property of its talented creator, Kazuki Takahashi. The badfic situations and characterizations are based on or extrapolated from actual badfic and no one in their right mind would claim _those_. The mangling of certain characters' names is also taken directly from multiple badfics.
> 
>  **Author's Note:** I've cleaned up some typos and stray punctuation. The site did some funky things (such as running words together, cutting some words and punctuation out altogether, and breaking sentences) that I've hopefully corrected this time around. I've made some minor revisions to the actual content, as well, since I wasn't happy with the flow of the story in some places.
> 
>  _Please remember that the opinions expressed by the characters do not necessarily reflect those of the author_.
> 
> Thanks to Dragondancer for beta reading!
> 
> * * *
> 
> I'm told that eating/drinking while reading this fic can be hazardous to your monitor/keyboard's continued health. ;D

**The Millennium Spork**

(A fanfic parody by Lucidscreamer)

Chapter 1: Enter the Idiots

 _The Kaiba Estate, just outside Domino City_

It was a dark and stormy night. Seto Kaiba awoke with the uneasy feeling that something was wrong besides the clichéd weather. Something far more dangerous - or, at the very least, far more annoying, since it was disturbing his beauty sleep.

Lying unmoving on the king-sized bed, he peered through slitted eyelids at his darkened bedroom. Moonlight from a gap in the curtains gave just enough illumination for him to see the room clearly. The silver briefcase containing his spare Duel Monsters cards was on the floor beside the bed. His beloved Blue-Eyes White Dragons - and the rest of his deck - were safely tucked into their own case, which was hidden beneath his pillow. Across the room, a Duel Disk Mark II lay atop an antique dresser. On the nightstand beside his bed, lay the book (Sun Tzu's _The Art of War_ ) that he had been reading earlier. Satisfied that everything was as he had left it, he closed his eyes and tried to force his body to relax, concentrating on each muscle group until the tension had eased. But sleep eluded him.

His mind wandered and he found himself going over his work schedule. He contemplated the problem of what to get Mokuba for his birthday, then considered the even more pressing problem of how to put a several-thousand-years-old, ancient Egyptian Pharaoh in his place. Finally, he found himself wondering what the fanfic writers were up to. That last one gave him pause. Why was he thinking about the fanfic writers? As a rule, he tried not to.

Frankly, some of them scared him.

"You can say that again," mused a disturbingly familiar voice, from uncomfortably close to his left ear.

" _Gah_!" Seto flailed as he shot straight up - and right off the bed. He tumbled to the floor with a loud, and rather painful, _thud_. Cursing, he untangled his legs from the covers and scrambled to his feet, falling instinctively into a fighting stance. It was pretty impressive, despite the silk pajamas with the little Blue-Eyes White Dragon embroidered on the pocket.

"How the hell did you get in here?" he demanded, glaring at the figure lounging on his bed. In the dim moonlight, all he could make out was the slender silhouette of a man leaning against the headboard, long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed casually at the ankles.

"That's... complicated," the figure said, rising.

Standing, he was easily as tall as Seto. In fact… Seto squinted. The intruder was _exactly_ as tall as Seto.

A terrible suspicion beginning to form at the back of his mind, Seto edged toward the bedside lamp. Already, he was writing out mental pink slips for his security staff. What was he paying those clowns for if they allowed random psychos to wander unchallenged into his bedroom in the middle of the night? The only random psycho he was even remotely interested in allowing anywhere near himself was Yami Yugi. That particular random psycho Seto was willing to duel anytime, anywhere - including his bedroom in the middle of the night. Why else keep his spare cards and a Duel Disk close at hand while he was asleep? (Yes, Seto was obsessed. This was not news to anyone, least of all Seto.) He would beat Yami and win back his title if it was the last thing he ever did! But that was _all_ he was interested in from Yami. No matter _what_ those crazed _yaoi_ ficcers insisted upon writing.

Speaking of insane fanfic writers… This was almost as bad as the time Security had let a Mary Sue through the front gates. She had made it all the way to the front door of the mansion before the automated Mary Sue detection system (which Seto had been forced to design in sheer self-defense) kicked in and dealt with the problem. Not even a Mary Sue could withstand a Blue-Eyes' Neutron Burst attack at point-blank range.

Seto fumbled for the lamp's switch, clicked on the light and, as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, found his second-worst nightmare had come to life and was staring at him with his own blue eyes.

Well, _shit._ Seto groaned. "Please tell me you're not a yami."

"Uh, no." The intruder grinned. "My name's Seto Kiaba. I'm your badfic stand-in."

It was even worse than he had thought.

Scowling, Seto reached for his deck.

-o-

 _Across town at the Kame Game Shop_

Yugi Mutou woke from a sound sleep (and a rather pleasant dream involving himself, Téa, and an industrial-sized vat of strawberry-flavored whipped cream) to the sound of someone crying.

 _Correction_ , he thought grumpily, as the noises ratcheted up several notches on the decibel (and angst) scale. _Someone sobbing his heart out._

Sitting up, he fumbled for the bedside lamp. When the light came on, the sight that greeted his eyes was enough to make him wish it hadn't.

Huddled on the floor by Yugi's desk was the small figure of a boy. The boy had messy, multi-colored hair, torn clothes, and a familiar golden object hanging from a chain around his neck. He lifted his sweet round face for a moment; it was covered in bruises and wet with tears. The pitiful boy sniffled and buried his face back in the crook of his folded arms, which rested on his drawn-up knees. He was the most pathetic creature Yugi had ever seen - and that included all the times he'd looked in the mirror to patch himself up after some bully had used him for a punching bag.

Yugi frowned. He was missing the ending of his favorite Téa-and-whipped-cream dream for _this_?

He did the only sensible thing he could do. He summoned up Yami to deal with the miserable little wretch, retreated to the sanctity of his own soul room - and went back to sleep. With any luck, he could get back to his dream in time for Mai to show up with the chocolate sauce.


	2. Dance of the Plot Device Fairy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2: Dance of the Plot Device Fairy

Chapter 2: Dance of the Plot Device Fairy

 _Back at the Kaiba Estate_

Kiaba flinched as his counterpart reached unerringly for his Duel Monsters deck. He jumped up from the bed and held up both hands in surrender. "There's no need for that. I come in peace!"

"You can leave in pieces," Seto growled.

" _Ooh_ ," Kiaba said. " _Somebody_ needs a hug."

"…I did not just hear that." Seto closed his eyes and prayed for a miracle. Unfortunately, Kiaba was still there when he opened them again. "Shut up and duel."

"What's the point? I know every card in your deck and every move you're likely to make. We'll only end up in a draw."

Seto growled wordlessly. But even he had to concede that Kiaba had a point - besides the ones on his impressively flaring trench coat. "Fine. Just go back to whatever hell you came from and we'll call it even."

"Um," said Kiaba. "There could be a _teensy_ problem with that, actually." He held out the Millennium Rod.

Seto flinched. Oh, _hell_ no. Instinctively, he fell back as the other advanced. "You said you weren't a yami!"

"I'm not," Kiaba assured him. His faint smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin as he flung his arms around his horrified counterpart. " _You_ are. Oh, I'm so glad I've found you at last, my yami!"

Seto did the only sensible thing he could do.

He fainted.

-o-

 _The next morning, at the Kame Game Shop_

When Yugi woke up Yami had not, much to Yugi's disappointment, Mind Crushed his annoyingly soppy double. Instead, said double had been cleaned up, dried off, and installed at the kitchen table, where he was currently staring at a plate piled high with Yugi's favorite chocolate chip pancakes as if they had personally offended him. Possibly by not being emo enough.

As Yugi watched, depressed!Yugi toyed with a bit of pancake on the end of his fork, stirring it around on the plate and making morose patterns in the syrup. Yugi found himself fighting the urge to smack himself. Well, not _himself_. The other Yugi. Or, rather, _not_ the Other Yugi, although frankly that was fairly tempting, too. Yugi stopped, finding that he had confused himself (the actual himself and not his Other Self or the other him sitting at the table) to the point of dizziness and decided to stop thinking about it altogether.

"Good morning, aibou!" Yami greeted him cheerfully, reaching across the table to place more pancakes on top of the stack already on the other Yugi's plate.

Yugi nearly tripped over his own feet. Since when had Yami ever been that cheerful? More to the point, _since when did Yami have his own body?_ He looked suspiciously from beaming!Yami to brooding!Yugi and frowned. "Okay. Who are you and what have you done with the real Pharaoh?"

 _'I'm right here_ ,' Yami's voice said in his head. Yugi jumped three feet in the air and glowered at the transparent form of his Other Self as it appeared beside him.

"Don't _do_ that!"

'Do what?'

 _'Never mind_.' Yugi stared at the scene before him. There were two Yamis (one see-through, the other solid) and the other Yugi, still gazing despondently at his breakfast - which was rapidly putting the original Yugi off his.

 _Wait just a card-playing minute,_ Yugi thought, slamming on the mental brakes so fast he left skid marks on his cerebellum. What was wrong with this picture (aside from the obvious)? "How did the two of you get separate bodies?" he demanded, looking from solid!Yami to emo!Yugi with eyes that were even wider than normal.

"Oh, that. It's all thanks to the Plot Device Fairy!" chirped the disturbingly chipper Yami clone with a disturbingly chipper grin.

"The _what_?"

A rather put-upon sigh issued from somewhere behind Yugi. He spun around to find himself staring at... " _Shadi_?"

Shadi (aka The Plot Device Fairy) nodded. "Yes. I'm afraid it _is_ all my fault."

"What is?" Yugi asked.

 _'What isn't?'_ Yami retorted.

Unlike his more forgiving partner, the Pharaoh wasn't above holding a grudge and had a few thousand years more experience at doing so. He had an impressive list of things for which he held Shadi personally responsible, starting with Malik trying to kill him and ending up with global warming. (Yugi pointed out that Yami didn't even know what global warming _was_. Yami pointed out that he didn't care; he was certain that, whatever it was, the blame for it could be laid squarely on Shadi's shoulders.)

Yugi smacked him amiably. "Shut up," he suggested, then turned back to Shadi. "What do you mean it's all your fault?"

"You see," said Shadi, "I accidentally hit _him_ -" He pointed to emo!Yugi. "-on the head with my Millennium Scales, and suddenly there were two of them."

Yami looked thoughtful. "You mean that all it would take for _me_ to have my own body would be for you to clout Yugi on the head with one of your Items?"

"Hey!" Yugi didn't especially want to be hit on the head, even if it meant he'd no longer have his body on time-share with a grumpy Egyptian.

"It's for a good cause." Yami patted him absently on the shoulder. (Even though Yami was currently transparent, his hand obligingly refrained from passing through Yugi's body. There might be a sound, metaphysical reason for this - possibly involving quantum mechanics - but Yugi suspected it was simply the multiverse's way of making his life even more difficult than it already was.)

"Yeah?" Yugi didn't sound convinced.

"Yes," said Yami reasonably. " _Me_."

"HEY!"

Yami just looked at him. " _Who_ gave up his life in order to save the world?"

"...Okay. _Maybe_ you have a point," Yugi allowed reluctantly. "But I still don't want to get hit over the head by-"

Too late. Yami had grabbed Shadi's hand (the one holding the Millennium Scales) and bopped Yugi over the head. Since Yami was still bodiless, this meant he had had to use Yugi's arm to do it. (While Yami could affect Yugi, there was very little else he could physically manipulate in spirit form. Yami had a sneaking suspicion this was also, somehow, Shadi's fault. Yugi figured it was Yami's way of getting out of helping with the chores.) So, in effect, Yugi had whacked himself over the head with Shadi's Scales.

"Ow," Yugi said. Then he turned and hit _Yami_ over the head. The Scales made a very satisfying _clang_ as they struck. A very _solid_ clang. Yugi gaped down at the no longer transparent - and currently very unconscious - Yami lying at his feet. Then he looked at the Scales. Then he looked at Shadi.

"I'm not sure how," Yugi said, "but I'm almost positive this is all your fault."

Shadi sighed. His mother had never warned him there would be days like this, but he rather felt that she should have. He sighed again, then attempted to get back to the point of his visit. "Chosen One, I have come to warn you!"

Yugi looked pointedly at the gathering around the table. "Little late for that one, aren't you?"

"They," Shadi said, with a dismissive wave at the duplicates, "are not what I have come to warn you about. Or, rather, they are merely a manifestation of the greater problem."

"You mean it's worse than _that_?" Yugi pointed at his duplicate, who was still sighing moodily into the maple syrup.

"I am afraid so. I have come to warn you that the walls between the universes have been weakened by the accumulation of badfic. This weakening is allowing some... leakage... from the other universes into our own. That is where these two-" He gestured at the extraneous Yami and Yugi. "-have come from."

"How do we send them back?" Yugi wrinkled his nose and eyed his doppelganger as if it were the product of a long night filled with too much tequila, all-you-can-eat nachos, and pixilated porno tapes. (Not that he would personally know anything about _that_ , of course. _Ahem_.) The other Yugi was too absorbed in his own angst to notice.

"There are only two ways of reinforcing the walls between realities," Shadi said. "Of the two, the first is both the easiest and the least likely."

By this time Yami had recovered enough to sit up. Studiously ignoring the odd look his partner gave him, he shooed off the teeny, winged Dark Magicians circling his head and climbed to his feet. "What is it?"

"The level of goodfic must rise to outweigh the damaging levels of badfic. However, given the sheer number of Mary Sues, Gary Stus, chat!fic and just plain bad writing that currently plague the _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ fandom, that is unlikely to happen," Shadi expositioned with grim earnestness.

"So what do we have to do?" Yami had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer. The last time he had tried to save the world, he had ended up as a rather tacky piece of jewelry. He doubted he was going to like this solution any better.

"You must spork the badfic," Shadi told him. "Only by taking on and defeating the badfic, one on one, can the multiverse be saved."

Yami blanched. "Couldn't I just sacrifice myself again?" Compared to constant exposure to Sues, Stus and badfic (oh, my!), a few thousand years sealed in an inanimate object was beginning to look like a two-week layover in Tahiti.

"I am sorry, my Pharaoh." To Yami's admittedly biased ears, Shadi didn't sound all that regretful. "This crisis affects not merely our reality, but all known permutations thereof. Not even the power of the Millennium Items can defeat this evil alone. You will also need... the power of the Spork!"

Yugi said, "I think there's a box of plastic ones in the cupboard."

"I do not speak of ordinary eating utensils, Chosen One!" Shadi exclaimed dramatically, sweeping his arms out to the sides. Everyone but the two Yugis (who, even standing, were well out of the danger zone) ducked. "You must harness the power of the Millennium Spork!"

"Er," said Yami. "Aren't there only seven Millennium Items? Yami Bakura tends to be pretty adamant about that, actually."

"Ah, but the Millennium Spork is not from this reality. It is from the universe of the fanfic writers themselves and only its terrible power can defeat them."

"You are one strange, turbaned man. You know that, don't you?"

Shadi shrugged. "In order to summon the Spork to this universe, you must assemble the seven Millennium Items and their rightful holders. Then, and only then, will you be able to use the Spork's power to restore the multiverse!"

"Could I at least have breakfast first?" Yugi asked, somewhat plaintively.

Yami handed him a cold Pop-tart. Yugi glowered at him. His badfic double got hot, fresh chocolate chip pancakes and all _he_ got was a room temperature toaster pastry? In what kind of messed up multiverse was that any way to treat the hero of the story? Growling, he headed for the phone. First, he'd call his friends. Then, he'd thump his idiot Yami for not thumping his idiot Yugi-alike. Then...

"We'll have to go see Seto Kaiba."


	3. Honey, I Shrunk the Pharaoh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3: Honey, I Shrunk the Pharaoh!

Chapter 3: Honey, I Shrunk the Pharaoh!

"Uh... Partner?"

Yugi returned from using the telephone to find Yami staring intently at something under the kitchen table.

"I think we have a small problem."

" _Another_ one?"

Yugi crouched down to see what Yami was staring at - and almost fell over in shock. Peering up at him from beneath the tablecloth, and a bright curtain of golden bangs, was a miniature version of Yami. Well, a miniature version of Yami if Yami had just come straight from ancient Egypt and was now sitting under the Mutou's kitchen table. A "small problem", indeed. Yugi was too captivated by the utter cuteness of a tiny Yami in white linen and gold to figure out how this was almost certainly Shadi's fault.

"Aw, he's so _cute_!"

Yugi's head whipped around, but, despite the distinctive voice, it wasn't his Yami commenting on the child's adorableness. It was the duplicate Yami, who had crouched down next to Yugi and was now peeking under the tablecloth to get a good look at the 'small problem'.

"Look, aibou! A mini-me!" Dupli-Yami chirped. "Isn't he the _cutest_ thing?"

Emo!Yugi turned wide, betrayed eyes on his Other Self. "You like him better than you like me!" he wailed, tears glistening on his delicate porcelain cheeks, before sliding off his chair and bolting from the kitchen.

Everyone, including the miniature pharaoh, stared after him.

"Eh-heh," said no-longer-chirpy!Yami, shoulders sagging most unchirpily. He even managed an anime-style sweat drop that made the real Yugi want to smack him. With a brick. "I'd better go and-"

"Grovel?" suggested Yami. He didn't bother hiding the sneer.

"Uh..." Dupli-Yami looked briefly offended, then wilted even further. "…Yeah." He sighed and ran after his departed emo!aibou.

Yugi and Yami exchanged glances.

"Whipped," Yami said.

"Like an industrial-sized vat of cream." Yugi's eyes momentarily glazed over as he thought about industrial-sized vats of whipped cream and the uses thereof. _Mmmm_.

Yami smacked him on the back of the head. "I can still see what you're thinking, Yugi. Stop thinking of _that_."

Yugi attempted to glower, but he simply didn't have the face for it. (When one has eyes like a Disney character gone horribly wrong, it's difficult to look threatening. Yugi spent at least half an hour every day practicing menacing looks in the bathroom mirror but, so far, the only results were Yami buying him face cream to combat frown lines - "Scowl all you want in your Soul Room, but out here in the physical world that's _my_ vessel you're prematurely aging!" - and Grandpa Mutou wondering if Yugi needed more fiber in his diet.) He looked down, into wide violet eyes in a solemn little face. "What's wrong, little fella?"

Yami's mini-me opened his mouth and babbled forth a string of what sounded like gibberish to Yugi. Yami, on the other hand, grunted in understanding, scooped up the child, and set him at the table in front of emo!Yugi's untouched pancakes. Unfortunately, only the top of the boy's spiky hair was visible over the edge of the table, so pillows had to be fetched from the living room to act as a makeshift booster seat.

Yugi cut the pancakes into manageable pieces, Yami handed his mini-self a fork, and the tiny prince was soon gobbling syrupy goodness like he hadn't eaten in three thousand years. Which, all things considered, maybe he hadn't.

Yugi beamed at the child. Yami glared at Shadi.

Shadi sighed. It was going to be a long day.

-o-

 _A few minutes later_...

"Grandpa? Can you come in here for a second?"

"What is it, Yugi?" Grandpa Mutou reluctantly looked up from his sweeping. He liked sweeping. There was a certain Zen to the simple back and forth of the broom as it removed the day's detritus. Besides, it made a nice change from downloading internet porn. A man his age had to pace himself, after all. "Is something wrong?"

"No..." A pause, as Yugi's innate honesty overrode expediency. "Well, kinda. It'd be easier to just show you."

"All right, Yugi. I'll be right there." Grandpa sighed and reluctantly set his broom aside.

He really hated _sweepus interruptus_.

-o-

Grandpa stared at the miniature version of the pharaoh for a long moment, then looked up to fix Yami with a stern gaze. "Is there something you'd like to tell me, young man?"

It took a second for his meaning to sink in. When it did, Yami was scandalized by the accusation. " _Grandpa_!"

"You're five thousand years old, Yami. I should _hope_ you've been gettin' some."

"GRANDPA!" Yugi flushed as red as a neon tomato and fell over. Absently, Yami picked him up, dusted him off, and set him back on his feet.

"Up until about five minutes ago, I didn't even have my own body. I assure you, I have not been 'getting' anything that could result in offspring. The boy isn't _my_ _child_ ," Yami said, fixing Grandpa Mutou with a glare that would make a basilisk envious. Grandpa, his thoughts filled with dancing brooms, was blissfully oblivious. "He's me _as_ _a child_!"

"What?" Now, Grandpa was confused. Even more than usual, which was saying a lot.

"It's a long story."

"Well, let's hear it," Grandpa said, with all the enthusiasm of a man who suspects said story is not going to include porn. Or sweeping. (Which, in case you're wondering, isn't much enthusiasm, _at all._ )

Yami sighed. "You see, it's all Shadi's fault..."

-o-

At some point during Yami's explanation, his duplicate had wandered back into the kitchen, where he stood staring at the pint-sized prince and grinning like a lobotomy patient.

The prince frowned up at him, then tugged on Yami's sleeve and babbled something that sounded as if he were complaining about an aromatic substance he'd found stuck to the bottom of his sandal.

"What'd he say, Yami?"

Yami smirked. "He wants to know if my... _brother_... was dropped on his head a lot as a baby."

Yugi snickered. With a supreme effort of will, he managed to stop it and wrestle a scolding expression onto his face. "Yami! That isn't very nice."

Yami's smirk took on a distinctly "cat in the cream" quality. Dupli-Yami's expression was more like a cat that had been asked to perform quadratic equations. "Why doesn't he just talk so we can all understand him?"

"He only speaks Egyptian." Yami managed not to add the _you moron_ out loud, but it was a near thing.

"That's just crazy talk!" Dupli-Yami said, with a disdainful sniff. "Everybody knows that the ancient Egyptians spoke fangirl Japanese!"

They all stared at him.

"Dude. What the hell are you _on_?" the real Yami demanded, once he'd found his voice. (It was under his suspension of disbelief, which, when it failed, had flattened it like a chocolate chip pancake.)

Yugi stared at Yami. Then he stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. Then he stared at Yami some more. Finally, he poked Yami in the center of his chest. "Did you just say 'dude'?"

"Uh." Yami replayed the last few seconds over in his head. "...No?"

"You did!" Yugi narrowed his eyes in accusation. "How do I know you're the real you and not some badfic version of you that snuck in, knocked out the real you when no one was looking, and stashed you in a closet somewhere so that you could take the real you's place?"

Yami stared at him.

Yugi poked him again. "Answer the question, imposter!"

"I would, if I knew what the heck it was," Yami said, beginning to glower. "Do _you_ even know what you just said?"

"Yes!" Yugi shouted. He poked Yami. "And so would the _real_ you, you fake-you you!"

"...I think you're giving me an aneurysm."

" _Ha_!" Yugi poked him. "I knew you were a fake! The _real_ Yami doesn't even know what an aneurysm is!"

"I'm receiving a practical demonstration even as we speak." Yami pinched the bridge of his nose in an unsuccessful attempt to stem the headache erupting behind his eyes. "And I assure you, I _am_ the real me."

Yugi poked him.

"Yugi! Stop that!" The command was accompanied by an admonishing glare.

Poke.

"Yugi!" If Yami were a volcano, the villagers would have been rounding up the sacrificial virgins and heading for the summit.

Poke. Poke.

"I mean it, aibou -" The villagers were launching their canoes and paddling frantically for safety on the next island over.

Poke. Pokepoke. Poke.

Mount Yami gave a final, warning rumble.

POKE!

Rocks fell. Everybody died.

...Metaphorically speaking.


	4. Dude, Where's My Cow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4: Dude, Where's My Cow?

Chapter 4: Dude, Where's My Cow?

Five minutes later, a lightly dazed and gently smoking Yugi was finally convinced - "dude" not withstanding - that the Yami currently standing over him and glowering like the wrath of (a) god(-king) was his actual yami and not one of the badfic Pod People.

As the last vestiges of the Shadow Realm dissipated around them, Yugi, swaying on his feet, said, "Sorry, Yami. I don't know what came over me."

"Hinotama." There was a smirk-filled pause. " _Twice_."

"Ah," Yugi said. He remembered that particular magic card from his duel with Malik-possessed!Joey. He hadn't liked it much _then_ , either. He blinked slowly, then reached up and wiped at the soot covering his face. "Right."

Dupli-Yami was gaping at his original. "Dude-san! That was awesome!"

"You mean you can't summon the Shadow Realm?" Yugi asked cautiously. (His brain was incapable of processing a voice that sounded exactly like Yami's saying the word "dude-san," so it ignored it out of sheer self-defense.) When Dupli-Yami shook his head, Yugi sighed with heartfelt relief. "Thank God."

"You're welcome," said Yami.

"I wasn't talking to _you_!"

"Ingrate."

" _Yami!_ "

"What? Would it kill you to make an offering every once in awhile? I'm not asking for a whole _cow_ , here, just a small steak would be nice..."

Despite the fact that he was still liberally coated with soot from his latest sojourn into the Shadow Realm, Yugi narrowed his eyes. "Don't make me get the ladle, Yami."

Yami subsided with a pout. (Or, rather, _not_ a pout. Pharaohs did not pout. A Pharaoh simply assumed a dignified and regal expression suitable for a god-king... whose lower lip just happened to possibly be protruding the teeniest bit - in a dignified and regal manner, of course - that was most definitely _not a pout_ in any way, shape, form or fashion. It was a manly, kingly expression. Godly, even. _Really_.)

Dupli-Yami sniggered.

Yami glared at him. "Do not make me go first series on your ass."

Dupli-Yami blanched, then proved he wasn't a complete idiot by shutting up.

"Could we get back to the problem at hand?" Yugi complained. Shadow Realm or no Shadow Realm, his expression promised the percussive application of any number of kitchen utensils to certain spiky-haired craniums in the near future if they didn't cooperate.

"Certainly, aibou."

"Thank you."

"...I'd even settle for a lousy plate of Hamburger Helper."

Yugi handed him a cold Pop-tart. He ignored Yami's growl.

" _As I was saying._.." Yugi looked around pointedly. No one interrupted. He huffed with a sort of exasperated satisfaction and continued, "As I was saying, we-"

"Oh-Em-Gee!" Dupli-Yami suddenly shrieked. His eyes were wide with horrified realization. "It's been over five minutes since I was with aibou! He can't be left alone that long or else-"

There was a strange sounding _pop_ from the other room. It had a certain floral quality to it that was unmistakable, if impossible to explain. Dupli-Yami shrieked again and dashed through the doorway.

" _What the hell?_ "

Everyone except Grandpa and the little prince followed the fleeing fake. (Or flake, as the case may be.) Grandpa looked down at the prince, who just rolled his eyes. He didn't get it, either.

Grandpa sighed with all the resignation of a man who knew it was going to be awhile before he could get back to his... sweeping.

The prince shrugged and went back to eating his pancakes.


	5. Bring Me to Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5: Bring Me to Life  
> (Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Songfic)

Chapter 5: Bring Me to Life  
(Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Songfic)

The Mutou living room was strangely dark, all except for the center of the room, where emo!Yugi lay sprawled on the floor like a broken, discarded doll. A circle of silvery moonlight surrounded him, making his frail form appear almost ethereal in its beauty. His pale, perfect skin glowed in the moonlight. His multi-colored hair shone like the softest of silks. He lay still and silent, a thin sheen of something that looked like greenish-yellow dust covering him like a pall. An artistic scattering of flower petals dotted his hair and the floor around him.

They all stood and stared at the tableau for a long moment.

Then the real Yugi walked over and gave his duplicate a friendly kick in the ribs. "Knock it off, you weirdo. It's mid-morning. There is no moonlight at mid-morning!"

The lighting in the room returned to normal. There was no other obvious reaction to Yugi's words, but emo!Yugi's silence assumed a distinctly sulky quality.

Yami turned to Dupli-Yami, who was looking faintly embarrassed by the whole display. "Care to explain this?"

"Not really, no." Dupli-Yami got a better look at Yami's expression, which had taken on an unmistakably "first series" cast, and changed his mind. "I mean, ' _sure_ , why not'?"

He sighed. "It all started when we were cast in this one badfic. The 'authoress' made aibou a bit... _dependent_... in that one, and when I left him alone for a few hours, he, uh, shot himself."

Yami looked over at the "body," which was quite clearly still breathing and bore no signs of trauma. Other than the greenish-yellow dust, and the lily clutched to his chest, emo!Yugi looked perfectly normal (for a certain value of "normal," anyway). "With what? I don't see a gun."

"Well... You see, fortunately aibou isn't much better at spelling than the 'authoress' in question and when she wrote that he shot himself with a 'pistil,' he took it literally."

It took Yami several moments to process that notion. "Are you telling me that he-?"

"Shoots himself with the reproductive parts of flowers, yes. I still haven't figured out how he gets them to fire." Dupli-Yami shook his head. "He ends up covered in pollen, but that's about it. Oh, and I can't let him get within ten feet of a florist, anymore. But it seems to make him feel better, so..." He shrugged helplessly, a _what are ya gonna do?_ expression on his face.

Despite himself, Yami found he was starting to feel some sympathy toward his duplicate. He ruthlessly crushed it. "So. What now?"

Dupli-Yami lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Now, I have to show my 'terrible grief' over 'losing' him."

"Just how long is that going to take?" Yugi demanded, having given up on getting his duplicate to stop playing 'possum, despite repeated kicking. He wandered back over to join the main group. "We're on a schedule here, people!"

Yami gave him an odd look. "No, we're not."

"If _I_ say we're on a schedule, _we're on a schedule!_ " Yugi countered, glaring up at him. Yugi might not have managed a true glower, but he could muster up a decent glare when the spirit moved him. (Or irritated him.)

Yami patted him on the head. "No caffeine for you, today, aibou. You're wound tightly enough, as it is."

Yugi growled.

"See?" said Yami. He carefully moved his hand out of biting range, then used it to prod his duplicate into motion. "Get over there and grieve, already. _Apparently_ , we're on a schedule."

Yugi beamed.

Yami rolled his eyes, though he was careful not to let Yugi see.

Dupli-Yami sidled toward his counterpart, who hadn't moved. With a dramatic cry, Dupli-Yami fell to his knees beside Emo!Yugi. The moonlight came back, bathing them both in its pale, silvern glow. Glistening tears welled up in Dupli-Yami's gem-like orbs, then flowed in glittering diamond trails down his golden cheeks as he bent over the fragile, still form of his beloved partner and drew one delicate hand into the firm clasp of his own.

"Oh, aibou! Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?" Dupli-Yami wailed, sounding utterly heartbroken. Obviously, he was a better actor than any of them had given him credit for, provided that by "better" one meant "over."

 _Great_ , thought Yugi, watching the fake Yami stroke the fake Yugi's cheek, with its false pallor in the phony moonlight. _Fake Shakespeare_. Bad _fake Shakespeare._

Yugi looked at the clock on the far wall. "Could you guys hurry it along? My friends should be here soon, and I really don't want to have to try to explain this on top of everything else."

The moonlight vanished. Dupli-Yami's tears dried up as abruptly as if someone had turned off a faucet. He looked up at Yugi and hissed, "It'll take longer if you keep interrupting!"

"Well, _excuse_ me," Yugi huffed.

Dupli-Yami ignored him as he went back to gently stroking Emo!Yugi's tri-colored tresses. The moonlight returned, spotlighting the pathetic parody of a _pieta_ , Dupli-Yami's tears once more flowed like crystal waterfalls, and Yugi fought the urge to ralph up his breakfast, which reminded him who was to blame for this fiasco in the first place.

"Shadi, how long are we gonna be stuck with these-?" Yugi began. Only, Shadi wasn't there. Yugi turned a suspicious glare on Yami. "What did you do with Shadi?"

Yami was offended. Oh, _sure_ , given his way, he would have used Shadi as the Millennium Stuffing in a golden turkey, but he had a feeling Yugi would object to that, so Yami usually settled for stabbing Shadi with pointed Looks rather than pointed objects. It wasn't as satisfying, but it kept Yami safe from the Ladle (having been on the receiving end of Yugi's mother's favorite tool of chastisement, Yami found the utensil fully deserving of the capital letter), and he figured justice would eventually be served, even if it took a few more thousand years for the dish to reach his table.

"I haven't done anything to Shadi," Yami said calmly. " _Yet_."

He looked around (intending to skewer the other spirit with an especially honed glare), but aside from Yugi, the only other people in the room were the two duplicates, who were engrossed in their melodrama to the exclusion of all else. Dupli-Yami appeared to be reciting cheesy poetry (or, possibly, boy-band lyrics) as he cradled his "fallen" partner. There was no sign of Shadi.

"He ran out on us, the traitor!" This was _so_ going on the "Things For Which I Blame Shadi" list, right after _Number One: Siccing a psychotic tomb-keeper on me_. Yami glowered at the doppelgangers. If he was going to bail, that bastard Shadi could at least have taken them with him.

Interrupting the Pharaoh's daydreams of sweet revenge, there was a knock on the door downstairs.

Yugi blanched. His friends were here! He glanced over at the two duplicates. Dupli-Yami was now clutching the limp form of his counterpart to his bosom as he crooned the chorus to _My Heart Will Go On_. This was what they had been reduced to: Celine Dion. Things couldn't get much worse. _Oh, well_ , he thought, trying to look on the bright side. _At least it isn't Evanescence_.

"I mean it, you two!" Yugi jabbed a finger in the duplicates' direction. They continued to ignore him. "If you haven't wrapped up this mess by the time I come back upstairs, I'll let Yami Shadow Realm you both. With extreme prejudice."

Yami frowned at him. "I am not your enforcer, aibou."

"Would you do it for a Scooby Snack?"

"Wrong cartoon."

"How about for an offering? I think I have a Slim Jim around here, somewhere..."


	6. The Not So Phantom Menace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6: The Not-So-Phantom Menace

Chapter 6: The Not-So-Phantom Menace

Yugi opened the door, expecting to see his trio of closest friends on the other side. Instead, he found Yami Bakura, which sufficiently startled Yugi that he blurted out the first thing that popped into his head without regard for where it fell on the rudeness scale. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Yami Bakura smirked at him. "I sensed a great disturbance in the Force."

"You _are_ a great disturbance in the Force," Yami informed him, coming up behind Yugi and fixing the other "dark half" with a firm Look. "Shouldn't you be out stealing candy from babies?"

"Shouldn't _you_ be- Wait a minute." Yami Bakura glared at Yami, then transferred the narrow-eyed inspection to Yugi. With slow movements, he reached out and poked Yugi in the arm. Ignoring Yugi's yelp of displeasure, he started to do the same to Yami.

"Touch me with that hand and you'll pull back a bloody stump," Yami warned.

"How the bloody hell do you _both_ have corporeal form at the same time?" Yami B demanded.

Yugi rubbed his sore arm - Yami B had put a lot of force behind that poke! - and not-pouted. Yami smirked. He was wondering how long he could draw out the torture by not answering, when he heard his own voice spill the beans (and spoil his fun). Yami tacked yet another item onto the List.

"It was the Plot Device Fairy!"

Yami turned to glower at his duplicate, who beamed at him.

"I managed to deflower aibou!" Dupli-Yami announced happily.

Yugi choked on his own spit. Yami buried his face in his palm and wondered which God he had recently offended. A loud thud made them all turn to look at Yami Bakura-

-Who had fainted.

 _Well_ , Yami thought. _At least there's been_ one _bright spot in my day_. He caught Yugi's expression, which held several variations on the theme of "forget the Ladle, I am about two seconds away from dismantling the Puzzle." Uh-oh. (When aibou wasn't happy, nobody was happy. Especially Yugi's Yami.)

"Whatever I did, I'm very, _very_ sorry," Yami said, tilting his head and talking to the ceiling. He wondered where in Domino he could purchase a cow (or a herd or two) to offer up as restitution.

-o-

 _Meanwhile, in the Kaiba Mansion's dining room..._

Seto sat glaring at his double, who was busy wolfing down breakfast. This included pancakes, bacon, eggs, toast, juice, sliced fruit, jam, rice, a whole fried fish, pickled vegetables, a bowl of miso soup, and enough coffee to keep Seattle in caffeine jitters for a month. Seto had never seen anything so disgusting in his life - or, at least, since the last time Joey Wheeler had eaten a light snack in his presence. Like Wheeler, Kiaba did not so much eat as inhale the food like a vacuum cleaner set on "starving blackhole."

When Kiaba finally polished off the last crumb and sat back with a satisfied sigh, Seto growled, "Are you finished? Or would you like Cook to prepare you a side of beef for dessert?"

For a second, Kiaba looked as if he were genuinely considering the idea. Then he gave a delicate burp and a sunny smile. "No, thanks. I'm done."

There were no words for the depth of loathing Seto felt at that moment, so he settled for glaring hot, flaming death at his duplicate. Kiaba didn't seem to notice. "Fine. Now that you've eaten enough to feed a small island nation, let's get on with finding a way to send you back to whatever circle of hell you came from."

"But, _Yaaammiiii_ -"

"Don't call me that! _Ever_."

Kiaba pouted.

Seto wondered if he could use some of Gozaburo's old military contacts to call in an air-strike on his own dining room.

Mokuba chose that moment to pipe up. "Why do you call Big Brother 'yami'?"

"Because he is," Kiaba chirped and tried to fling his arms around Seto, who fended him off with a piece of the leftover bacon. "He's my yami and I'm his hikari!"

" _Aw_ , that's so _sweet_."

 _Yeah_ , thought Seto. _It's so sweet it should come with a diabetic warning_. "It's not sweet, it's disturbing."

If looks could kill, Seto's would have qualified as a weapon of mass destruction and nuclear winter would have been mere seconds from settling in over Domino. Immune, Kiaba beamed at him. Seto wished he had instructed Cook to season Kiaba's breakfast with a _soupçon_ of arsenic.

"Oh, stop being such a Grumpy Gus." Mokuba grinned at Kiaba, who was attempting to breach the bacon barrier with little success. "He _really_ likes you. It's cute."

Seto glared at his little brother. "Are you _trying_ to get yourself grounded? Because, if you are, it's working."

Mokuba gave him the patented "lighten up, big brother" eye-roll. "Kiaba will be good for you. You need a friend."

"Like I need a hole in the head," Seto growled. He narrowed his eyes at Mokuba. That had sounded scarily like the beginning of a friendship speech. "Have you been hanging out with the dweeb squad again?"

Mokuba grinned. Kiaba feinted left, lunged right, wrapped both arms around Seto, and proceeded to cling like an octopus with a leech complex.

Seto buried his face in the palm of the hand that wasn't pinned to his side by his duplicate's hug and wondered why, exactly, the universe loved to torture him. He had awoken that morning with a raging headache and the unshakable conviction that he had narrowly escaped from a horrible nightmare. Then the bedroom door had opened and admitted said nightmare, trailed by his traitorous little brother, who seemed all-too-thrilled with having a second Seto around.

 _"Mokuba!" Seto said, eyes wide with betrayal. "What have I told you about consorting with the enemy?"_

 _"Only to do it if I'm sure I can twist them to serve my own ends?"_

 _"Good boy."_

Now, as Seto flailed his free arm and struggled to free himself from the clutches of his over-enthusiastic double, he reflected that there was only one way to redeem what was shaping up to be the Day from Hell - share the pain. And he knew _exactly_ who he wanted to share it with.

With that thought in mind, he decided to go visit Yugi.

-o-

 _Back at the ranch, er, the Kame Game Shop..._

When Bakura opened his eyes, they had lost their sharpness. Yugi recognized at once that the Thief had retreated, leaving his host to deal with the insanity.

"Ow." Ryou Bakura rubbed his head where it had struck the floor when his dark side passed out. He glanced up at the faces surrounding him. He seemed to be seeing double - or possibly triple, as there seemed to be one regular Yugi and two Yami Yugis peering down at him. With the kind of resignation that only comes from long practice, he said, "What did he do this time?"

"Believe it or not, this time he's innocent."

Ryou snorted. "Have you _met_ my yami?"

"No, really."

Rubbing at his eyes did nothing to do away with the extra Yugis. "I think I may be concussed. I'm seeing three of you."

"Oh. No, you're okay." Yugi knelt down beside him. "There _are_ three of me. Or, rather, there's one of me - well, two really, but the other me is in the living room, so you haven't seen him yet - and two of the Other Me, which is confusing but doesn't have anything to do with you getting knocked on the head." He looked thoughtful. "Actually, it has more to do with _me_ getting knocked on the head, by one of the Millennium Items, so, you see, this is really all Shadi's fault."

Relieved to have gotten the explanations out of the way, Yugi smiled.

Ryou stared at him. "I think one of us hit his head very, very hard. I'm just no longer sure it was me."

Sighing, Yugi pointed to himself. "I'm me." He pointed at Yami. "He's Yami." The pointing finger shifted to the other Yami. "That's Yami's bad-fic stand-in."

"You can call me Dupli-Yami." Dupli-Yami offered Ryou a hand up, which Ryou accepted gingerly.

"Um, hullo. I'm Ryou Bakura."

"Pleased to meet you, Ryou." Dupli-Yami said, and then grinned at something over Ryou's shoulder. "And here comes my aibou! Aibou, come say hello to Ryou."

Still covered in pollen, Emo!Yugi moped into the hall. He favored Ryou with the kind of look Ryou was more accustomed to seeing on his darker half's face, and then turned to Dupli-Yami with huge tears glistening in his eyes.

"You're trying to replace me!" Emo wailed and ran for the door, which slammed behind him before either Yami could even try to grab him.

"Shit!" Dupli-Yami flung open the door and went after his AWOL aibou. It slammed behind him.

Yugi looked at his Yami. "Don't just stand there gaping like a drowning carp. Go after them!"

"Why? Maybe we'll get lucky and they won't come back."

"Or they'll do something horrible - like make everyone who sees them think they're us."

They thought about the way their duplicates acted.

" _Shit_ ," Yami said and yanked open the door.

"Hold it!" Grandpa poked his head out of the kitchen and fixed them all with a stern look. "Just where do you think you're going?"

"To retrieve our insane and supremely irritating look-alikes?" Yami made an impatient gesture. "And we're in a bit of a hurry, so if you don't mind-"

"Aren't you forgetting something? Or, rather, _someone_?" Grandpa stood aside and gave the prince a gentle push into the hall. Then he folded his arms over his chest and scowled at Yami and Yugi. (Ryou didn't know whether to be worried about the fact that Yami and Yugi had apparently had a child together without telling him or amused by the fact that said child had mimicked Grandpa's stance, right down to the scowl.) "If you're planning on going out, you need a babysitter."

"But, Grandpa-" Yugi plastered on the puppy-eyed pleading. "Can't you watch him? We really are in a hurry!"

Grandpa and the prince exchanged identical looks and lowered their arms. Grandpa sighed. "I'm too old to keep up with a toddler, Yugi. Particularly if he's anything like either of you were at that age."

Yugi served his best "do something!" look at his yami. Yami volleyed with a "why me?" Yugi's return backhand "because you're the cool one with the magical powers, dumb ass!" cleared the net and won the game.

" _Fine_." Yami reached for his deck. After all, what was the use of having access to a bunch of immortal, incredibly powerful servants if they couldn't do you a little favor every once in awhile?

-o-

Dark Magician stared from his Pharaoh to the Pharaoh's mini-me in astonishment and no small amount of horror. Changing diapers was _not_ on his resume.

"You did say your soul would serve me forever," Yami pointed out in a reasonable tone of voice that made the Dark Magician's hand clench tightly around his staff.

 _I will not smack my Pharaoh on the head. I will_ not _smack my Pharaoh on the head_...

"Mahaad? I _can_ count on you to keep my younger self safe while I'm gone, can't I?"

Dark Magician sighed. Somedays, it didn't pay to leave the atelier. "Yes, my Pharaoh."


	7. Life's a beach (and then you fry)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How many bad fish jokes can one author insert into an unsuspecting chapter, just for the halibut? Let's find out! XD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this chapter on FFnet ages ago; thought it was already here as well, but obviously not...

Chapter 7: Life's a Beach (and then You Fry)

 

Leaving the prince in the care of a resigned Dark Magician, the trio of Yugi, Yami, and Ryou barreled out of the Mutou's front door -- where a flare of blinding light caught them and enclosed them all in a brilliant white bubble as it swallowed them whole.

 

(Where it'll spit them out, only the bad-fic knows...)

 

 

-o-

 

 _Elsewhere_...

 

The Mutou residence had vanished between one blink and the next. What now met Yami's startled gaze was an expanse of blue sky and gentle waves foaming against sugar-white sand broken by the occasional decorative cluster of boulders. Unless Grandpa Mutou had gone on a new reality show called "Speed Extreme Home Makeover: Shoreline Edition" when Yami wasn't paying attention, something of strange had happened.

 

Clearly, this was Shadi's fault. Before the Guardian had turned up with those rotten duplicates in tow, things like this hadn't happened to Yami. Ah, the good old days, when the only things he had to worry about were a crazed Tomb Robber, a duel-obsessed Kaiba, and Yugi's Mom's Ladle. He shook off the nostalgia, which was making him a bit teary-eyed, and growled, "Where am I?"

 

"Looks like a beach to me," said a laconic voice from behind him.

 

Yami, who had thought himself quite alone and therefore hadn't anticipated an answer to his question, yelped and whipped around. A few feet away, an unexpected figure lurked behind some tall, wispy grass. "...Tristan?"

 

"Yo." Tristan waved lazily, then did a classic double-take at the sight of Yami's new clothing. Instead of the duplicate of Yugi's outfit that Yami had been wearing, he was now decked out in tight blue pants, tucked into knee-high black boots, and a vaguely military-styled jacket that was seriously over-endowed in the epaulet department. "Whoa. What are you supposed to be? A parking valet?"

 

Yami chose not to dignify that with a response. Instead, he glanced again at their surroundings. Sand, surf, and a certain excess of seagulls vindicated Tristan's assertion that they were on a beach. There was, however, a remarkable lack of valet parking service to validate Yami's ensemble. (Tristan, it must be noted, was dressed in perfectly ordinary jeans, t-shirt and trainers, a fact doing nothing to endear him to the Pharaoh.)

 

As he stood there wondering where Tristan had come from and how the hell they'd ended up on a beach, the gulls' squawking reached a fever pitch. Yami cut his gaze back around to see what had set them off. The gulls, enough to re-enact a scene from a Hitchcock film, were squabbling over a mound of seaweed washed up on the sand near the edge of the water. They pecked at the seaweed fighting for primacy with bobbing heads and beating wings.

 

Clutching a length of driftwood, a hand erupted from the seaweed and flailed about until the gulls (complaining loudly at the loss of their hoped-for snack) hopped out of reach. Then, a familiar spiky head of hair popped into view.

 

" _Yugi_?"

 

Tristan at his heels, Yami hurried over to find out why his partner was lying half-buried in a pile of stinking seaweed. "Yugi? What are you doing down there?"

 

"Skiing." Yugi was definitely getting better at the sarcasm thing. He was rapidly mastering the narrow-eyed glare, too, since the one he leveled at Yami actually made the Pharaoh pull up short. Yugi frowned. "Why are you dressed like a maitre d'?"

 

"I think he's supposed to be a prince," Tristan said, his expression fairly glowing with an air of earnest (and patently false) helpfulness.

 

"What?" Yugi, who was still lying on his stomach and half-covered in kelp, gave Yami a horrified once-over. On second glance, the outfit _did_ impart a certain air of "royal scion." It also provided the final nail in the coffin of Yugi's hopes that none of this was what he had feared it to be. "Oh, shit."

 

"Aibou? What's wrong?"

 

Ignoring the question, Yugi buried his face in his palms. "Oh, no. No, no, no, _no_..."

 

"What is wrong with y--?" Yami, who had knelt to clear away the kelp, froze. From the waist up, Yugi was naked (except for a pair of seashells held together what looked like seaweed). From the waist down, he was still naked -- but he was a naked _fish_. Yami gaped at the purple fish tail that began just below Yugi's navel and continued down where his legs should be to end in a wide, translucent fin. "--Uh?"

 

"Dude!" Tristan weighed in, summing up the frantic thoughts pinwheeling through Yami's stunned mind. "You're a fish!"

 

"I am _not_ a fish!" Yugi shrieked. His crimson face clashed horribly with his new purple tail.

 

"Sheesh. Mermaid, then. Sorry." Tristan rolled his eyes. Who knew those of the finny persuasion were so touchy?

 

Though it didn't seem possible, Yugi turned even redder and his voice went up another octave. "I am not a _mermaid_. I'm a _man_. Okay, merman. But, still, mer _MAN_."

 

Tristan made a show of looking him over. "Long hair, fishy fins... a little flat-chested, maybe, but you've got that seashell bra thing, so you sure look like a mermaid to me."

 

"-- _man_ , dammit! I'm a _merMAN_!"

 

"You're sounding kinda high-pitched, there, too."

 

"I am not a mermaid! Do I have to whip it out to prove it?!"

 

"Don't have a coronary, dude." Tristan tried, and failed, to suppress a snicker as Yugi's tail fin thrashed in frustrated agitation. The gulls, which had been hopping back into investigative range, scattered in a flurry of squawks and feathers. "Besides, I don't think you can 'whip out' what you don't have. And fish don't have--"

 

" _Argh_!"

 

Yami decided it was time to intervene, before Yugi had a coronary -- or threw a piece of driftwood at his friend's head. "That's quite enough, Tristan."

 

"Sure, spoil all my fun."

 

"I'm _so_ glad my suffering amuses you," Yugi growled, and collapsed back onto the damp sand with a huff.

 

"Hey," said Tristan, with what could only be called an evil smirk. "I just want to be a part of your world."

 

-o-

 

 _Five minutes later_...

 

"Please tell me Kaiba's a fish, too. Lie, if you must."

 

"Well, there _was_ something about an 'Undersea CEO'. I think he's supposed to have tentacles, though."

 

"Doesn't matter, dude. A fish is a fish."

 

"I am not a fish! I'm a _mermai_ \-- uh, _merMAN_. Why can't you get that through your thick skulls?!"

 

"Says the guy wearing the bra."

 

"And I come from an ocean-challenged culture, aibou. We were a bit deprived in the aquatic folklore department."

 

"I can talk to fish now. I'm going to ask a whale to beach itself so it can eat you both."

 

"Whales are mammals. Y'know, like you _used_ to be."

 

"...There are not enough words to describe how much I hate you right now." _Stupid mammals with their legs and their walking and their wearing clothes that weren't made of seashells_ _and meant for girls, anyway_...

 

"Dude. I'm wounded."

 

Yugi eyed him darkly. "Keep it up and you will be."

 

-o-

 

Eventually, Yami managed to convince Tristan that teasing Yugi into apoplexy wasn't helping them figure out what was going on. Then he calmed Yugi down enough that he wasn't trying to hit Tristan with the driftwood bat and could speak in coherent sentences again.

 

By that time, the sun was sinking on the watery horizon and Yami was exhausted. He sat down on the sand next to his appendage-challenged partner. "So, what do you suppose we should do now?"

 

"As long as it gets me my legs back," Yugi said, "I don't care."

 

"Maybe we just have to follow the story."

 

Yugi and Yami both gaped at Tristan, who raised an eyebrow at them. "What? I have ideas."

 

"What do you mean 'follow the story'?" Yami sounded doubtful but willing to be convinced. Yugi was shaking his head again and muttering denials.

 

"You know, the story you two are apparently starring in." Tristan waved a hand in a gesture that encompassed their surroundings, Yami's princely garb, and Yugi's fin. "Looks like _The Little Mermaid_ to me, with Yugi as the mer... _man_ and you as the handsome prince." He made a moue of distaste. "This is probably the Disney version, since I doubt the badficcers have even heard of Hans Christian Andersen."

 

"How the hell did we end up _inside a bad-fic story_?" Yami demanded. "We're not--" An expression of horrified realization crossed his features. "This happened when our doubles ran off. What if we've somehow been drafted to take their places?"

 

"Then why isn't Tristan a crab or something?" Yugi pouted at his depressingly normal friend, who smirked.

 

"I'm not popular enough to get written into much fanfic, of any quality." The smirk turned gloating. "The badfic can't touch me."

 

In Yugi's opinion, Tristan was far too pleased by this turn of events. He swung his tail up and smacked Tristan in the back of the knees, knocking him face-first into the sand. While Tristan sputtered and spat sand from his mouth, Yugi turned to Yami and achieved a full glower for the first time ever. The gulls fled in shrieking terror.

 

"Help me back into the surf," Yugi commanded his startled dark half. "I've got to see an octopus about some legs..."

 


	8. Seto Kaiba, King of DeNile

Chapter 8: Seto Kaiba, King of DeNile 

 

Seto was almost certain that he'd had worse days, but right now, he couldn't remember even one of them.

 

One minute, he'd been arguing with his annoying double; the next, he was up close and personal with a startled grouper. Or possibly a flounder. Look, it was some kind of ugly fish, okay? (Seto was not a huge fan of seafood. Especially when it was giving him the fish-eye three inches from his nose.)

 

The fish had fled before Seto recovered enough of his wits to demand an explanation (though from whom, unless he found a talking piscine, he had no idea). He tried to spin around in the hopes of finding out where he was or, failing that, someone to yell at. That was when he noticed ( _really_ noticed, though honestly, the fish should have been his first clue) that he was _under water_.

 

Spontaneous scuba diving, without benefit of diving gear, had to take a backseat to a more pressing matter, however. Namely, that someone had swapped his lower body for that of an octopus. Or maybe a squid. Something with tentacles. He'd be more worried about the taxonomy if he weren't busy being weirded out by the writhing white _things_ that had replaced his perfectly serviceable legs.

 

He opened his mouth to scream...

 

...And that was when the sea slugs started singing something about "unfortunate souls" and "undersea CEOs." Disturbing as that was, the song might have made a few things clearer if he'd paid attention.

 

Unfortunately for Seto's grasp of the narrative, he missed the chorus as, for the second time in as many days, he fainted.

 

-o0o-

 

Seto woke up to someone poking him in the ribs and demanding legs. Sad to say, this was not the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. (Though it was in the top ten.)

 

Lying on what felt like the most uncomfortable patch of ground on the entire planet, he pretended he was still unconscious, hoping things would either make sense or just go away if he ignored them. No such luck: he was still underwater, still semi-cephalopod-ish, and someone was still insisting he grant them legs (which would be a neat trick, considering he'd managed to misplace _his own_ ).

 

"What. The. Fu--" He opened his eyes and nearly got one of them poked out by a sharp strand of yellow bangs. "Yugi?!"

 

"Finally!" Yugi grabbed him by the lapels of his tournament overcoat (the white one with the metal studs and the totally-not-unnecessarily-pointy-lapels- _Mokuba_ ) and hauled him as upright as Seto could get on his wiggly appendages. "Gimme legs! Now!"

 

"Are you out of your ever-loving mind?" Seto was getting a headache. Probably due to nitrogen narcosis. Or maybe he was drowning and this was all a hallucination resulting from oxygen deprivation/brain damage. "What the hell do you mean 'give you legs'? Do I look like a leg vending machine?"

 

"I'm not even gonna ask what kind of creepy serial killer vending machines you have at Kaiba Corp." Yugi shuddered and flicked his long purple fish tail.

 

 

Seto stared at Yugi. Nope, he wasn't imagining it (unless this whole thing was part of a mental breakdown caused by repeated exposure to Kiaba).

 

From the waist down, Yugi was covered in shiny purple scales that spread into a large, transparent tail fin. It was almost pretty. (Also kind of girly, especially combined with the seashell bra strapped across Yugi's thankfully flat chest, but Seto was ignoring that in favor of his head trying to explode.)

 

"Why the hell are you half fish?" Seto growled, squeezing his eyes shut and praying he was just having an aneurysm. At this point, death would be a mercy. "No, don't answer that. I don't care. None of this is real. I refuse to believe that I'm a squid and you're a mermaid."

 

"MerMAN!" Yugi yelled, then paused to give Seto's tentacles a considering once-over. "And I'm pretty sure you're an albino octopus. In a trench coat."

 

In the background, the slugs starting humming.

 

"I'm in hell," Seto decided, pinching the bridge of his nose in a vain attempt to ease his headache, which had upgraded to Def-con Migraine. If he never saw anything with fins, tentacles, or gills again, it would be too soon. "There is literally no way for this day to get any worse."

 

Proving just how wrong Seto was, his self-proclaimed "hikari" tackled him in a full-body hug that sent them both to the sea floor in a tangle of tentacles.

 

"There you are, Yami!" Kiaba cried happily, seeming not at all phased by the fact that he, too, was now part octopus. "I'm so happy to have found you!"

 

"That," Yugi said, looking almost as freaked out as Seto felt, "is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. And I've seen Emo!Yugi."

 

Shoving Kiaba off him, Seto asked, "Do you always refer to yourself in the third person?"

 

"Only when I'm a second person," Yugi said, as if this made any kind of sense.

 

"...I'm almost afraid to ask."

 

"Well," Yugi said, gesturing at Kiaba, "what do you call _your_ second person?"

 

Kiaba perked up with an embarrassingly giddy grin. "I'm Kiaba! Hi!"

 

"Hi." Yugi politely shook the hand Kiaba offered. "Are you Seto's bad fic stand-in?"

 

"Yep!"

 

"Okay. So, if you're available to take his place... why is Seto here?"

 

"Dunno..." Kiaba frowned. "Where's _your_ stand-in?"

 

"He and Dupli-Yami ran off. There was a flash of light and the next thing I know, we're impersonating fairy tale characters."

 

Inserting himself back into the conversation (which was still only in the top five weirdest things to happen to him), Seto said, "We? Who's 'we,' exactly?"

 

"Me -- me-me, not Emo!Me -- Yami-Yami, and Tristan."

 

Seto spared a moment to wonder if he could beat himself unconscious on the nearby coral, then, in the flattest tone in his arsenal, said, "You make my brain hurt."

 

"Well, you won't give me legs!" Yugi retorted.

 

Kiaba raised a hand. "Him-me or Me-me?"

 

"Either you!" shouted Yugi.

 

Seto buried his head in his hands. "I-I hate you-you all-all."

 

 

  



	9. When the Fish 'n' Chips Are Down

_Yami_ and Tristan were perched on a low dune just beyond the reach of the breakers. Ever since Yugi had vanished beneath the waves, Yami had been staring at them and, (proving that a good listener is usually thinking about something else), only partially paying attention to Tristan's rambling attempts at distracting him.

 

"Sometimes, I ponder important things, you know?" Tristan was saying as Yami listened with half an ear. "Like the meaning of life and the origins of man. And other times, I ponder not-so-important but equally relevant things. Like why my room smells like dog food, though I think that's my nephew's fault, because--"

 

A few minutes later, Tristan tried to start a debate on the relative merits of fish sticks versus chicken nuggets. (For the record, Yami preferred fish sticks, which had the virtue of being made from parts of the animal in question that he'd knowingly put in his mouth, but saying so felt vaguely disloyal to Yugi, for reasons he'd rather not think about. Which negated the whole point of having the argument in the first place.)

 

Fortunately, Tristan met his lack of rejoinder by shifting topics again. "And we should all think about greener living. I mean, look at the nuclear family, right? Sure, they can operate more cleanly in some respects than, say, a coal-powered family. But, dude, when there's the inevitable Thanksgiving meltdown over whether Aunt Frieda's pumpkin pie is better than Grandma Estelle's, the whole neighborhood's gonna feel the fallout--"

 

"Look!" Yami interrupted, spying something in the waves. "There's Yugi!"

 

"Yeah, I can see his hair. Kinda hard to miss."

 

The two of them hurried down to where sea met sand, just as Yugi body-surfed into shore. And, this time, he wasn't alone. A very disgruntled looking Seto Kaiba dragged himself onto the beach, followed by his exact duplicate. Yugi appeared to have lost the tail, but both Kaibas were sporting... tentacles?

 

"Oh, great," Tristan said. "Just what this day needs: Seto Kaiba in stereo."

 

The Kaibas in question glared at him. One of them growled, "Why are you even here, Taylor?"

 

"Why are you a squid?"

 

Yugi frowned. "Pretty sure he's an octopus. But that's beside the point--"

 

"The point is, he's beside _himself_ ," Yami corrected, randomly selecting a surplus Seto to indicate with a gesture. "Who is this one?"

 

"My name's Kiaba," the double chirped, waving up at them from his sprawl, half on the sand, half on Seto. "I'm his hikari!"

 

"You are not!" Seto yelled, recoiling so hard he fell back into the water. His double dove after him, hauling Seto upright with a worried, "Yami!"

 

"For the last time, I am not your yami! I am not _anyone's_ yami!" Seto flailed, trying to free himself from Kiaba's grasp. "You have ten seconds to let go of me. After that, any part of you that's still touching me, you're not getting back."

 

Tristan couldn't decide whether to laugh or shriek in horror. "Is anyone else as disturbed by this as I am?"

 

" _Yes_ ," chorused Yugi and Yami.

 

Then Yugi stood up, revealing the fact that he was only wearing the seashell bra, and made up Tristan's mind for him. He shrieked in horror. "Oh my god, where are your _pants_?!"

 

"I was just a fish," Yugi growled. "Ever seen a _fish_ with _pants_?"

 

Both hands clapped over his eyes, Tristan bemoaned, "I can still see it when I close my eyes, dude. I think it's burned into my retinas!"

 

Hastily, Yami stripped off his jacket and bundled Yugi into it. Fortunately, the jacket's long cut meant it covered the essentials, even if it didn't really make up for the lack of legwear.

 

"While I am happy to see you restored to your usual self, Yugi," Yami said, "I have to admit that I, too, find your lack of pants disturbing."

 

"Well, Darth Yami, I found my lack of _legs_ more disturbing, so either give me _your_ pants or shut up about it."

 

Seto had finally gotten away from his double and clawed his way further up the sand. "You should all shut up and figure out a way to get us all the hell out of here." He considered a second. "Except Kiaba. After all, this is his natural habitat."

 

Not quite ready to let the pants thing go, Yugi glared at Tristan. "You could stay, too. Since you don't usually get to 'enjoy' the whole 'fic experience' and all."

 

"Nah, I'd flounder as a fish. My life's porpoise isn't to work for scale."

 

"Oh, you think you're punny, don't you?"

 

"I'm not fishing for compliments."

 

"No, you're doing it for the halibut."

 

"And having a whale of a time."

 

Seto snapped. "Both of you idiots clam up!"

 

"Man, you're crabby. Get up on the wrong side of the sea bed this morning?"

 

Seto growled at the heavens. "If this day had a face, I would punch it. So. Hard."

 

Kiaba patted Seto on his pointy shoulder pad and said, "Yami's right. We need to concentrate on figuring out a plan for getting home."

 

"Huh," said Seto, looking stunned at something sensible coming out of his double's mouth, even if Kiaba was still using the hated "y-word."

 

"What?" Kiaba looked insulted. "It's as plain as the face on your clock."

 

And the sensible had left the building. (Beach. Whatever.)

 

"We could stand here and argue until the cows turn blue, but that'll get us nowhere faster than molasses in January," Kiaba continued, oblivious to the four "wtf" expressions directed his way. "I'm sure it'll be as easy as falling off a piece of cake, if we put our minds to the grind stone."

 

Tristan hadn't ever heard anyone mangle English idioms that badly, and he'd known Joey Wheeler for most of his life. In an awed voice, he asked, "On a scale of one to Colorado, how high _are_ you right now?"

 

Deciding that ignoring the insanity was the only reasonable course of action, Seto turned to Yugi. "Please tell me you have a plan for dealing with this."

 

"Absolutely," Yugi said dryly. "Ever since we got here, I've been furiously clicking my heels together and chanting 'there's no place like home'. Oh, wait. No, I haven't, because for most of this god-forsaken day, I haven't had feet!"

 

"Speaking of feet," Yami interjected, in the tone of one determined to get an answer if it killed someone. (Not _him_ , of course. Been there, done that, bought the carved stele. (Because they didn't have t-shirts in ancient Egypt.)) "Why do you have them?"

 

At Yugi's narrowed eyes, Yami added, "I already said I was glad you're back to normal. I would just like to know how you accomplished it."

 

"Kiaba did it."

 

" _Kiaba?_ "

 

"Yeah, kinda surprised me, too. But I guess since he's the one who's supposed to be here, he's the one with the story-appropriate powers."

 

"Here's my theory, and correct me if I'm wrong--" Kiaba began, only for Seto to cut him off.

 

"You're wrong."

 

"I haven't told you my theory, yet!"

 

"You're still wrong."

 

Folding his arms and looking like a kicked puppy, (if puppies had tentacles and questionable taste in trench coats), Kiaba pouted.

 

"Oh, let the guy tell us his theory," Tristan said, frowning at the looks the others shot him. "How bad could it be?"

 

In Yugi's opinion, their options were "bad," "really bad," or "really, _really_ bad." But, Kiaba's sad puppy eyes were lethal levels of heart-twisting, so what he said was, "Fine. What's your theory, Kiaba?"

 

Kiaba pointed over Yami's shoulder. "I think we should go through that."

 

-o0o-

 

 

Tristan and Yami lugged Seto and Kiaba up the dune to the glowing spot on the sand that the duplicate had spotted. Once there, all five of them stared at what they'd found.

 

"Well," said Yugi. "That's something you don't see everyday."

 

"That" was a patch of rainbow light, as if a beam was passing through a prism to shine on the sand. In the center of the light, floating there with no apparent support, were the words, _to be continued_...

 

"I seem to have lost my mind, let me know if you trip over it or anything," Tristan mumbled, gaze fixed on the impossible sight in front of them.

 

"Yeah, okay," Seto grouched, turning to glare at Kiaba. "You're observant. But pointing out a thing one of us was bound to notice sooner or later is not a theory!"

 

"Oh, I know that." Kiaba beamed at him. "My theory is that if we go through the light, we'll be sent back to your dimension. Or to another bad-fic."

 

That sounded like a good idea to absolutely no one else.

 

"Uh, I don't know about you guys, but I'd really rather not end up with fins, again," Yugi said, grimacing at the thought. "Or worse."

 

"What makes you think we'll end up in another bad-fic?" Yami asked.

 

"Well, that's what usually happens with us stand-ins. There's a lot of bad-fic out there, so we stay pretty busy." He looked as thoughtful as he could manage, which wasn't very. (And it appeared to hurt.) "But since you guys are here, we'll probably return to your dimension instead. I mean, that's where I was before Yami and me got sent here. And you said your stand-ins are still there, right?"

 

"Yeah." Yugi sighed. There was no way this would end well. "Anyone got any better ideas?"

 

Crickets chirped in the ensuing silence. Both Yugi and Seto spared a moment to feel thankful that they weren't singing.

 

"Literally any idea ever is a better one than listening to this guy's stupid idea!" Seto said finally, without much hope of anyone listening to _him_.

 

Proving him right, Yami said, "If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid."

 

"So, when this all goes wahoonie-shaped and we end up in some 'Fifty Shades of Bad-Fic' hell, we won't even have 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' as an excuse," Yugi noted. "Awesome."

 

"Ah, where's your sense of adventure?" asked Tristan.

 

"At home. In my pants, along with my dignity."

 

"Speaking of pants, if we do make it home, you can retrieve yours," Yami pointed out.

 

"Thank you, Pharaoh Bright Side."

 

Ignoring the sarcasm, Yami said, "We should all go through at the same time. Tristan, you carry Kiaba. Yugi and I will deal with Seto."

 

"Don't I get any say in this arrangement?" Seto demanded.

 

"No."

 

With a huff, Seto acquiesced. It wasn't as if he realistically had much choice in the matter. Tentacles did not lend themselves to shifting the human half of his body on dry land, and he did not intend to further humiliate himself in front of his greatest rivals. (And Tristan, though Tristan Taylor fell below _Kiaba_ on Seto's List of People Whose Opinions I Give a Shit About.)

 

"Jeez, dude," Tristan complained, as he hefted Kiaba onto his back. "You weigh a ton. I think I sprained my spleen..."

 

"Shut up and get us through the... portal or whatever the hell it is," Seto commanded, trying to pretend he wasn't draped over Yami's back with Yugi wrangling wayward tentacles like a bride's attendant carrying her train.

 

"All right," Yami grunted, bent nearly double under the weight of his passenger. "Let's do this!"

 

Hoping for the best, they stepped into the light.

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

Only a minute or two after our heroes (and Kiaba) had vanished, two figures appeared on the beach. They walked to the portal, frowning at the footprints that disappeared into the light.

 

"Well, poo," said the first figure, hands on her curvy hips and a moue of disgust on her Purple Sparkleberry lip-glossed lips. "I told you we were gonna miss 'em if we didn't hurry. But, nooooo, you had to stop for your stupid coffee!"

 

"You know how I get when I'm under-caffeinated!" wailed the second figure, clutching her venti, half-soy, full fat, extra-whip, pumpkin spice mocha with caramel drizzle and chocolate sprinkles to her chest. She took a long pull at her drink, and then brightened as a thought occurred to her. She gave a giddy hop, setting her pink-tipped blonde curls bouncing. "We'll just have to catch them in the next story!"

 

"Oh, sure." The first figure rolled her heavily kohl-lined, purple shadowed eyes. "And how do you suggest we find out where they went?"

 

"Chill the fuck out, Rio," the second girl said. She held up a golden object, adorned with a stylized Egyptian eye, that she'd retrieved from her massive purse. "We'll use _this_ , of course."

 

Laughing, she and the girl named Rio danced on the sand.


	10. Chapter 10: (Narrative) Karma's a Bitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our intrepid heroes escape the mermaid AU and return home. Well, there are buildings. It's probably a city. It might be Domino.
> 
> Joey's there, at any rate. (Whether this is good news or bad remains to be seen.)

Chapter 10: (Narrative) Karma's a Bitch  

 

 

After they left the blinding light of the portal, it took Yugi a moment to blink the spots out of his eyes. When he did, he was relieved to see that they had arrived on what appeared to be a typical urban street. Even better, his friends were still with him, and both Seto and Kiaba had regained their human legs. Best of all, they were all fully clothed: Yugi in his school uniform, Yami in a copy of the same minus the jacket, Seto in his favored ensemble of business-casual-meets-whatever-we're-calling-that-spiky-trench-coat, and Kiaba...

 

Yugi did a double-take. Kiaba's outfit was the same as Seto's, but in powder blue, and studded with rhinestones.

 

"Whatever look you were going for, you missed," Yami told him.

 

"Eh." Kiaba shrugged, then reached down to pull Seto to his feet. "I like it. It's shiny." (And it was far from the strangest outfit he'd ended up in.)

 

Seto scowled and gave Kiaba a shove. "Go stand somewhere far away from me so I can pretend I don't know you."

 

Peered at their surroundings, which consisted of a reassuringly normal paved two-lane road lined on either side with commercial buildings, Yami asked, "Anyone know where we are?"

 

They all turned in circles, scanning the street for familiar landmarks.

 

"Uh...Somewhere?" Tristan offered, after a moment of shared silence.

 

"I was looking for something a bit more specific."

 

"Somewhere with buildings."

 

"Somewhere in Domino City," Yugi corrected. "That's as specific as you're getting. Where ever we are, at least it's an improvement over that last place."

 

"What, you didn't enjoy having a fish tail?" Tristan teased.

 

It wasn't an experience Yugi was eager to repeat, but, "At least it wasn't tentacles."

 

Nodding, Tristan glanced over at Seto and Kiaba. "Hey, what do you call a bunch of octopuses, anyway? I mean, I will forever be disappointed that a group of squids isn't a 'squad,' so I'm hoping for, like, a 'square root of octopi' or something."

 

Seto stared at him for a long moment before declaring flatly, "I hate you. I hate your friends. I hate your family all the way back to the prehistoric fish you descended from. I hate your favorite food, your favorite color, and your stupid _hair_. And your little dog, too."

 

"I don't have a dog."

 

"When I get home, I'm buying you a damn dog so I can hate it."

 

The silence that followed this declaration was best summed up as "...".

 

"I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm being chased by a shark or unexpectedly groped by a piece of seaweed," offered Kiaba. (Clearly, he'd had more of an adventure than the rest of them realized.) Cheerfully, he added, "It was kombu."

 

In a tone of voice that suggested he would rather be in a different conversation, Yami said, "...The shark?"

 

"The seaweed."

 

Seto was ignoring them in favor of squinting at something in the distance. To Yugi, he said, "Is that Wheeler?"

 

"It is!" Yugi jumped up and down, waving his arms to attract his friend's attention. "Joey! Over here!"

 

"Yug'!" Grinning, Joey jogged to meet them. "We got to your place just as you disappeared -- like, _literally_ just disappeared -- in a big flash of light. Poof! You were gone, and so was Tristan. We've been lookin' everywhere for ya. What happened?"

 

So that's how Tristan had ended up in the mermaid bad-fic with them. And now Yugi was wondering what had happened to Ryou. All this time, he'd just assumed that Ryou had stayed behind. Yugi hoped his friend was okay...

 

When it became clear Yugi was lost in thought and wasn't going to answer, Tristan promised, "I'll fill you in later, Joey."

 

_Much later_ , Yugi thought. _And, hopefully, the heavily edited version_.

 

"It's kind of a long story," Yami agreed. With an evil grin, he gestured at Seto. "In the mean time, why don't you ask this one about tentacles?"

 

"Tentacles?" Joey looked dubious. "This isn't like that one time I got the titles mixed up and bought the wrong... anime, is it?"

 

Snickering, Yugi said, "Never mind that right now, Joey. Where are we, exactly? I don't think I've ever been in this part of town before."

 

"Uh..." Joey looked around as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. "Me, neither. After we split up, I was just wandering around, hopin' I'd bump into you guys."

 

"Great." Seto groaned. "Our would-be rescuer's lost, too."

 

"Nah. I don't get lost, I go exploring." Joey grinned. "Seriously, though, I've got a great sense of direction. Just follow my lead, and I'll get us back to the game shop in no time."

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

_One hour later_...

 

Joey paused at an intersection, planted his hands on his hips, and took a long look around. His brow furrowed with deep thought.

 

"Uh-oh," Tristan said, in a voice filled with resignation. "I know that look and it does not bode well. Just admit it, dude. We're lost."

 

"Nah." Joey shook his head. "I mean, I don't think we're where I thought we were, but I think I know where we are."

 

"Lost?"

 

"Shut up." Joey licked his index finger and held it up to test the direction of the wind. He tilted his head back to check the angle of the sun, turned in a slow circle to read all the street signs, and then gave a decisive nod. "Yep. I know exactly where we are."

 

"Yeah?" Tristan sounded half skeptical, half impressed. "Where?"

 

"Lost."

 

With the strangled sound of a man valiantly resisting homicidal urges, Tristan smacked Joey on the head. Joey retaliated and things instantly devolved into a wrestling match right there in the middle of the sidewalk.  


"Cut it out, man! It's not like I did it on purpose, I just made a little mistake!"

 

"If you ever learned from your mistakes, you'd be Einstein by now!"

 

"Oh, yeah?!" Joey got Tristan in a head lock and started trying to noogie him into submission. "Think you're so smart? Whatcha say now, smart guy? Huh?"

 

"You're not smart enough to be the spell-checker in an M&M factory!" Twisting free, Tristan hooked his foot behind Joey's ankle and swept his legs out from under him. His triumphant cry morphed into a yelp when Joey grabbed him and returned the favor. "Ow! Lemme go, you maniac!"

 

Yami leaned closer so Yugi could hear him over the shouting. "Should we separate them?"

 

"It's better to let them get it out of their systems." Yugi sidestepped as the flailing tangle of limbs tumbled past them. "Maybe we should call somebody to come get us."

 

"I already thought of that," Seto said. "Unfortunately, I don't have my phone."

 

"Me, either," Yugi admitted. A quick look confirmed that Kiaba didn't have his, and Yami wasn't allowed unsupervised access to any technology capable of connecting to the internet. (Even the el cheap-o flip phones were problematic. Yami did not respond well to being told he was "out of the service area.")

 

Meanwhile, the wrestlers had paused to catch their breath, so Yugi yelled over to them, "Tristan, Joey! Do either of you have your phone?"

 

Tristan shook his head. "That was the first thing I checked, after we came through the portal. I had it before we ended up on the beach, but it didn't make the return trip with me." (Somewhere, a sand crab was attempting to play Candy Crush and cursing its clumsy claws.)

 

"I still haven't replaced mine since the last Scrabble night," Joey said, shooting a fierce glare at the Pharaoh. (Yami also did not respond well to being told that "twisted thing, ski slope, half a cookie, small bread thingy that looks like an Airwick air freshener" did not constitute a legal word in the version of Scrabble they were using. (He didn't really respond well to Joey's butchering of hieroglyphic writing either, but that hadn't stopped Joey from taking a great deal of amusement from doing it.))

 

"I said I'd buy you a new one," Yami grumbled. And he would. He just hadn't gotten around to doing it. Guess this was his punishment for procrastinating.

 

"At least it can't get any worse," said Seto, thereby dooming them to narrative karma.

 

It instantly started to rain.

 

Everyone glared at Seto, even Kiaba.

 

"Oh, like this is my fault!" Seto said, glaring back at each of them in turn. "Saying things can't get any worse does not make things get worse!"

 

"Oh, yeah?" Yugi pointed across the street. "I think I just found Emo!Yugi."

 

Sure enough, Emo was across the street from their corner, haunting the narrow alley between a florist and the Sweet Temptations Bakery. In the short time he'd been missing, he had apparently embraced the stereotype. He was decked out all in black from head to toe: black-dyed hair, black muscle shirt with a gray-scale frowny face, black jeans, black boots, and... Was that a black quiver on his back?

 

"Is he _armed_?" Yugi's voice pitching up in alarm as he considered the idea of his walking downer of a double with weapons.

 

Proving he had surprisingly sharp eyesight for a guy who regularly rolled his eyes nearly out of their sockets, Seto said, "Only if you consider sunflowers dangerous. That quiver looks like it's full of them. Someone has apparently painted them _black_ , but they're still just plants."

 

Yugi's eyes widened as he recalled what had happened the last time Emo got his hands on something floral. Who knew what kind of havoc the little weirdo could wreak with an entire bouquet?

 

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 

_Meanwhile, at the Mutou house._..

 

A large white sheet covered the kitchen table, reaching to the floor on three sides and folded back on the fourth to form a makeshift pavilion. Inside, a comfortable nest of rugs, throw pillows, and a couch cushion held a napping Prince Atem. Juvenile Kuriboh, purring their contentment, surrounded him on all sides.

 

Until ten minutes ago, the prince had been a ball of giggles as he played with the kindle of Kuriboh kittens Dark Magician had summoned for him. They had finally worn him out, much to the relief of the magician, who, over the course of the day, had lost his helmet, his armor, most of his dignity, and all of his energy.

 

The prince wasn't a difficult child. He had a happy disposition, and cheerfully participated in the activities proposed by either Dark Magician or Mr. Mutou, whether it was a picture book, a reading lesson (papyrus scrolls, since the prince had no real need for either English or Japanese), or a game of tag. But the child was an amphora of energy stuffed into an unguent jar and the overflow was exhausting for anyone attempting to keep up with him. (Or, as Grandpa Mutou said, Atem was an Energizer Bunny and it was a relief when his batteries finally ran down.)

 

Eleven minutes after the young prince succumbed to slumber, Grandpa Mutou was snoring on the couch, and Dark Magician curled up on the kitchen floor, asleep before his head touched the linoleum.

 

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 

_Back in the "A" Plot (for a certain value of "plot")_...

 

 

Not wanting to risk spooking Emo and sending him running again, the gang had taken up positions under an awning. It wouldn't provide much (or any, unless Emo was _really_ unobservant) cover if he looked straight at them, but it got them mostly out of the rain.

 

They watched Emo as he crept out of his alley, rounding the corner of the bakery and attempting to peer into the large plate glass window at the front.

 

"Looks like the li'l dude's staking out the bakery," Tristan whispered.

 

"Why would anyone stake out a bakery?" Seto demanded, and received an elbow in the ribs for his trouble, while Yami hissed at him to keep his voice down.

 

"Dunno. He could be hungry." Having skipped breakfast to run to Yugi's aid, _Tristan_ was hungry and the yummy-looking display of pastries in that window was beginning to call his name.

 

"Maybe he just really wants a cupcake," Kiaba offered, then grunted as he, too, got the elbow. He added, in a sulky whisper, " _I_ really want a cupcake. I haven't eaten since breakfast."

 

"You ate the contents of a medium-sized grocery store," Seto informed him. "There is no way you're hungry."

 

"Yeah, because you're the one to tell me whether I'm hungry or not." Folding his arms, Kiaba sulked while his "yami" glared at him.

 

Not really getting what all the fuss was about, Tristan said, "Why don't we just go over there and _ask_ him what he's up to?"

 

"Yeah," Joey agreed. "What could it hurt?"

 

Naturally, that was when the first shot rang out, followed in rapid succession by about a million more.

 

Even as he was throwing himself flat on the sidewalk, Yami shouted, "That does it! The next person who tempts fate like that is getting sent to the Shadow Realm!"

 

"If it gets me out of the line of fire," Joey retorted, "that works for me!"

 

 


	11. Chapter 11: Mission Implausible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's your responsibility. Now, get out there and deflower your aibou again!"
> 
> (Or, the return of Emo!Yugi and Dupli-Yami.)

Chapter 11: Mission Implausible

 

 

The thing about a shoot-out is that bullets don't care what, or who, they hit. Contrary to what movies tell us, it's not the single bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about so much as all of its buddies addressed "to whom it may concern."

 

That said, there's little more satisfying than having someone take a shot at you and miss. Seto reflected on this truth as he flattened himself on the sidewalk to avoid taking a bullet to the brain. Around him, the others were doing the same. The street filled with the sound of gunfire, sharp firecracker pops seeming to echo from all directions.

 

"What the hell?!" yelled Joey. "Who's shooting at us?"

 

"Why don't you go out there and ask them?" Tristan shoved at him. "And get your feet out of my face!"

 

"Get your face out of my feet!"

 

"We need to get to cover!" Yami's deep voice cut through the noise, shutting down the impending argument. " _Now_."

 

Easier said than done. The store fronts were useless, not even a recessed doorway or handy stairwell in sight. Directly in front of them, the street was clear, not even a bicycle parked at the curb. A short way down, a large concrete planter might offer some meager shelter for one person (two, if one of them was Yugi), but they would probably get shot trying to get to it.

 

Seto turned to growl at Yami, "How do you suggest we do that? Teleport?"

 

"Well, what do you suggest we do? Stay here and get shot, or go out there and get shot?" Yami snapped back.

 

"I vote option 'C'," Joey said. "Not get shot at all."

 

"Then you'd better come up with a helpful course of action!"

 

Tristan groaned. "We're relying on _Joey_ to get us outta here? We're doomed."

 

"Crawl toward the bookstore!" Yugi ordered, already matching action to words and, sticking as close to the building as possible, belly-crawling toward a glass door with the words "The Gilded Page, Mr. Ian Woon, proprietor" painted on them in excessively curly calligraphy.

 

"Thank goodness one of us has some common sense," Tristan muttered, following Yugi's example and pulling himself along with his elbows. Behind him, Joey was complaining under his breath about road-rash.

 

Seto shoved at Kiaba to get him moving. "Hurry up and get going before someone gets in a lucky shot."

 

"Aw, you do care!" Kiaba beamed at him over his shoulder, then obligingly started crawling. "I knew you did."

 

"I do not! You're just blocking my way."

 

"Uh-huh." Kiaba shot him another grin. "Love you too, Yami K."

 

"What did you just call me." It wasn't even a question, more like a statement of utter resignation. No matter what the answer turned out to be, Seto knew he wasn't going to like it.

 

"Yami K," Kiaba repeated. "You know, so you don't get mixed up with Yugi's Yami."

 

"Or you could do what I tell you, and stop calling me 'yami' altogether, because _I am not a yami_!"

 

Kiaba pretended he hadn't heard that, and they continued the rest of the way to the store entrance in silence. (Well, except for the scrape of cloth and sneaker soles on concrete, the noise of the gun battle, and Yugi's hissed encouragements from the open door of the bookstore. So...not really silence. Never mind, then.)

 

"Get in here!" Yami commanded. He and Yugi each grabbed one of Kiaba's arms and half-dragged, half-helped him inside while Tristan and Joey did the same for Seto. Once in the door, they let it swing shut and scurried over to the store-front window and crouched down below the ledge.

 

Tristan stuck his head up briefly, peered out at the street, then ducked down again as something _rat-tat-tatted_ against the glass.

 

"Is everyone alright?" Yugi asked. "Did anybody get hit on the way in?"

 

"I'm fine," Yami assured him. "You?"

 

"Yeah. Tristan? Joey? Are you guys okay?"

 

"We're good."

 

"Seto?" Yugi asked. "Kiaba?"

 

Seto glanced down at himself. He was dirty, scraped up, and sore, but otherwise unhurt. "I'm okay."

 

His duplicate didn't answer.

 

Yugi repeated, "Kiaba?"

 

Kiaba looked at them with wide blue eyes, then pushed his trench coat aside to reveal a dark spot on his side where red liquid was soaking through his shirt. A spot that was growing steadily larger.

 

"I think I've been shot," he said, right before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted dead away.

 

  
-o0o-

 

 

 _Meanwhile, in a much less exciting part of town_...

 

A flash of light heralded the appearance of the two girls from the beach.

 

"Are you sure this is the right universe?" the first girl asked. She was a paean to the color black: jeans, sleeveless top, tall boots, and hipster shades. She wrinkled her pert nose as she surveyed the ordinary-looking city street. "It looks bor- _ing_! And I think your stupid portal thingy chipped my nails."

 

She waved Exhibit A, a tiny flaw in her purple manicure, under the other girl's nose.

 

"God, Rio, do you have to be so _petty_?" The second girl, who was wearing so much glitter she sparkled more than a figment of Stephenie Meyer's imagination, frowned. "Anyway, the Millennium Compact is never wrong!"

 

Before Rio could formulate a scathing reply, they both heard the sound of distant gunfire. The Compact began to glow with an eldritch light.

 

"Betcha they're..." The second girl swung the Compact in an arc and then pointed in the direction it glowed the brightest. "That way! Or my name isn't Princessa Angelica Unicornia Glitteratti Hikari!"

 

"I thought your name was River Kawaii Malika Prosateuse Pegasus."

 

"I changed it."

 

"Why?"

 

"This one's cuter."

 

"It's stupid."

 

"You're stupid!"

 

"I have heels higher than your IQ."

 

"You're so _mean_!"

 

"Shut up. Do you wanna stand here and argue or go find our bishies?"

 

Princessa bounced happily. "Bishies!"

 

"Right. Let's get this show on the road."

 

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 _Back at the Gilded Page bookstore_...

 

 

Everyone was staring at the unconscious Kiaba. After a moment, Seto knelt down and, lifting Kiaba's head so it rested on his lap, pressed his fingers to Kiaba's neck to check his pulse.

 

"Well, he's alive." Seto wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news.

 

"Is that blood?" Joey gulped, pointing at the discolored spot on Kiaba's side and looking faintly green. "Tell me that's not blood."

 

Yugi squinted. "I don't think that's blood..."

 

"Let me see," Yami said, shoving the others out of the way. He poked delicately at the wound, carefully lifting the shirt out of the way. "Hmm."

 

The others bent close for a better look. "Was that a good 'hmm' or a bad 'hmm'?"

 

"He's fine," Yami reported, leaning back so that they could see. The bad-fic stand-in's side was unmarred except for a couple of shallow scratches.

 

"What's that on his shirt, then?" wondered Tristan.

 

Yugi held up a punctured Kool-Aid drink pouch, the source of the red liquid. "He had this in his coat pocket."

 

"Hey, is that fruit punch flavor?" Joey asked, then cringed at the sharp looks stabbing his way. "What? It's my favorite."

 

"Remind me to kill him when he wakes up," Seto growled in disgust, shoving himself to his feet and letting Kiaba's head bounce off the floor with a loud _thud_.

 

"Ouchies!" Kiaba, obviously awake, clutched at his head. "That hurt, Yami K!"

 

"Shut up."

 

"Lie still," Yami said, pressing Kiaba back down when he tried to sit up. "You're fine, but whoever's out there is still firing. We wouldn't want to get caught in the crossfire."

 

"'Kay." Kiaba fumbled a hand across his "wound." "What hit me?"

 

Yugi held out a handful of small, oblong, black-speckled objects. "Sunflower seeds, still in the hull."

 

"Oh, dear," a familiar voice said from further in the store. Rapid footsteps hurried toward them. A second later, Dupli-Yami paced into view. He frowned at the seeds in Yugi's hand. "What fool let my aibou get his hands on a semi-automatic sunflower?"

 

"Never mind how he got it," Yami snapped. "He's your responsibility. Now, get out there and deflower your aibou again!"

 

Everyone but Yugi, who'd heard it all before, gaped at the two Yamis. Joey yelped and clapped both hands over his ears, Seto tried to pretend he didn't know any of them, and Tristan groaned, "Dude! I can't un-hear that!"

 

Sighing, Yugi said, "He means _take the flowers away from_ Emo."

 

Everyone relaxed (Seto still tried to pretend he wasn't with them, just in a more relaxed fashion). Shaking his head, Yugi got up and motioned for Kiaba to follow him as he headed toward the counter at the back of the store. "Come on. Let's see if we can find you a Band-aid."

 

"And by 'Band-aid' you mean a gallon of hydrogen peroxide and a set of stitches, right?"

 

"...Whatever."

 

Once they were out of the way, Yami turned back to his double. "Where have you been?"

 

"Trying to catch up with Aibou. He's wily when he wants to be," Dupli-Yami said with a fond shake of his head. "And I brought reinforcements." He gestured behind him, where a new person, unnoticed until now, stood. "Meet Ryouchan."

 

Ryouchan stepped out of the shadows. Outwardly, he was a near perfect copy of Ryou Bakura, though his white hair seemed a bit fluffier and his eyes somehow seemed bigger and shinier. He was dressed in a pastel version of Ryou's favorite striped shirt and slacks combo, topped with a fuzzy white jacket with bunny ears on the hood. There was an honest-to-god halo hovering over his head.

 

Stunned into somewhat horrified silence, everyone goggled at him.

 

" _My Fair Lady_ ," Ryouchan sneered in the perkiest voice to ever attempt to curse (and fail). "You'd think you'd never seen a bad-fic stand-in before."

 

"Did we fall down a rabbit hole while I wasn't lookin'?" Joey finally managed, after a few seconds of opening and closing his mouth while trying to find words that weren't "wtf," to ask the room at large.

 

"Dunno, dude," Tristan, speaking for the group, said. "But if a caterpillar shows up and offers you a hookah, just say no."

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 _Elsewhere, on the_ Pacific Princess _cruise ship_...

 

Shadi, dressed in a mint green shirt dotted with bright pink pyramids wearing sunglasses, coral colored Bermuda shorts, and black socks with sandals (look, he'd spent most of his life and all his afterlife in earth-tones; it was time to branch out), adjusted his Ray-bans and took a long pull on his Corona with lime.

 

He hadn't been on a vacation in... ever. Well, there'd been that pilgrimage to Abydos when he was thirteen, but that was with family and a religious obligation to boot, so it didn't count.

 

Still, that trip had not included a perky cruise director who made sure he always had a partner in the disco, a friendly bartender who made sure he never went thirsty, or -- Shadi peeked over his sunglasses at the nearby pool -- many lovely ladies in skimpy bikinis.

 

He leaned back in his deck chair with a happy sigh.

 

Time to just kick back and relax. It was doing him a world of good, and he was certain Yugi and his friends had everything well under control back in Domino City.

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 _Back in Domino City_...

 

 

Things were most definitely not under control. Our intrepid heroes had been arguing over their next move for the past five minutes with no resolution in sight. At least the storm _outside_ had blown over.

 

Tristan and Seto were trading insults over each other's strategic skills and/or the lack thereof, while Joey alternated between staring across the street at the sweet, sweet baked goods in the bakery window and grumbling at his fellow plotters, who mostly ignored him.

 

"All I'm sayin' is why can't I enjoy a cupcake while evil is being unleashed upon us?" Joey said, rubbing at his growling stomach. "Just one lousy cupcake. Is that too much to ask?"

 

"We need a plan!"

 

"And cupcakes," Joey said. The other two shouted over him.

 

"You're an ass! Stop being an ass, you ass!"

 

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice!"

 

"My kingdom for a trebuchet!" Joey yelled suddenly, temporarily giving up on the cupcakes, though... Trebuchet plus cupcakes? That sounded like a siege weapon made of pure awesome.

 

At any rate, he'd finally gotten Tristan's attention. "Dude, you don't _have_ a kingdom."

 

"Then, quick, somebody get me a kingdom so I can trade it for a trebuchet," Joey said reasonably.

 

"How the hell do _you_ , of all people, even know what a trebuchet _is_?" Seto demanded, feeling a fresh headache firing up behind his eyes.

 

"I read!" In the face of the frankly disbelieving stares focused on him, Joey wilted. "Okay, so I read comic books. Some of which have trebuchets, I'll bet, though I don't actually remember an example of one right now, _but_ \--" He held up an admonitory finger. "But, be that as it may, I _do_ know what a trebuchet is. I saw 'em one time on TV."

 

"That, I'll believe," Tristan said, and then smacked him on the back of the head.

 

"Whatever, man. A trebuchet'd come in handy right about now."

 

"So would an air strike," Tristan pointed out dryly. "Unfortunately, we don't seem to have one at our disposal."

 

Joey turned to Seto. "Hey, rich boy. Make yourself useful and call in an air strike."

 

"I own a corporation, not an air force."

 

"Then what good are ya?"

 

"Oh, bite me, Wheeler."

 

"Not even if you were upholstered in jelly donuts."

 

Deciding, for the sake of his sanity, to ignore them for as long as possible, Yugi (who had returned from his errand of mercy), turned to Dupli-Yami and asked, "'Semi-automatic sunflower'? Really?"

 

"I did warn you about this," Dupli-Yami said. "Just be glad he hasn't got a saguaro." He shuddered. "All those needles..."

 

"This has not been a good day," Yami said. "In fact, this day has been the double-plus ungood day of all not good days."

 

"Since when have you read '1984'?" Tristan asked, abandoning his argument with Joey as a lost cause.

 

Yami shrugged. "Between duels, I like to read. It keeps me occupied, since Yugi won't let me use the computer."

 

"I'd like to keep avoiding the apocalypse for a little while longer, if you don't mind," Yugi said, getting that pinched look he always got when contemplating the equation of "internet plus ancient pharaoh equals chaos and destruction." They'd learned the hard way that Yami tended not to suffer trolls gladly. Who knew the "smite key" was a real thing? (Not to mention the fact that Yugi was pretty sure his laptop was still smoking.)

 

"Fair enough. But why Orson Wells?" asked Joey.

 

Tristan face-palmed. "It's George _Orwell_ , moron."

 

"I got your 'Orwell' right here." Joey flipped him the bird. "Also, why are we standing around discussing ancient literature when we should be figurin' a way outta this mess?"

 

" _Ancient_ \--?"

 

"Dude, if it was written before I was born, it's ancient. Shut up and tell me what we're gonna do now."

 

"You make my brain hurt."

 

"We have to get to Yu-- er, _Emo_ -Yugi," Dupli-Yami said. "I don't think he's firing at us. So, whoever he's after must be on this side of the street. Maybe we can find them and stop them from shooting at him."

 

"How? By letting them shoot at _us_?" This seemed like a good idea to exactly no one other than Dupli-Yami, so Yami continued, "Emo's floral ammunition may not be fatal, but the same cannot be said of whoever is shooting back, as they appear to be using more conventional bullets."

 

As if to prove his point, a burst of gunfire shattered the window of the bakery, spraying glass and bits of frosting and cake into the air.

 

"Well, that's a waste of perfectly good pastry," Joey mourned.

 

Tristan smacked him on the back of the head. "Could you not think with your stomach for, like, five seconds while we figure out how not to die in here?"

 

"Dude. If I gotta go, I'd rather go with sweet thoughts of tasty dessert foods instead of bitchin' about the fact that I'm about to kick the bucket."

 

"Where's your sense of adventure?"

 

"At home. I grabbed my common sense by mistake."

 

"I didn't think you had one of those."

 

"Guys!" Yugi glared at them. (He'd come a long way since the beginning of this debacle; he was fast approaching Seto-esque levels of angry expressions.) "Can we focus? We have to work as a team to figure this out."

 

"Right." Joey nodded. "Teamwork is essential."

 

"Indeed. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot at," a new voice interjected into the conversation. Everyone turned to look at...

 

"Bakura!"

 

Yami Bakura frowned at the group. "I'd say I'm sorry I'm late, but I don't actually want to be here, so I'm not. Sorry, that is. Well, sorry I'm here, perhaps..." He trailed off as he noticed his lighter half's ultra-fluffy duplicate. Slowly, Bakura reached out and poked Ryouchan's halo. "What. The actual. Fuck."

 

Ryouchan folded his arms and scowled at him. "Shove it up your Cabaret."

 

"...It's like being menaced by a dust bunny," Bakura said in a tone of awed horror. He hadn't been this traumatized since... well, since he'd first encountered Dupli-Yami and Emo-Yugi.

 

Mentally grabbing Ryou and shoving him back in control of the body, Bakura made a hasty retreat to his soul room. _You deal with it_ , he told Ryou. _I'm taking a mental health day. Decade. One of those._ _Now, where'd I put the booze...?_

 

Still muttering to himself, mostly about being "too sober for this shit," Bakura slammed the mental door behind himself, and Ryou was left blinking at the others in confusion.

 

"Hi, Ryou," Yugi greeted him. "Meet your bad-fic double. He's even weirder than Emo. I'm sorry."

 

"Ooh--kay?"

 

Yugi patted him on the arm. "It's exactly as bad as it looks, but try not to think about it. At least until no one's shooting things at us."

 

"And then?"

 

"Then we'll eat ourselves into a junk food coma and pretend none of this ever happened."

 

Wearing an expression somewhere between "I'm reluctantly concerned" and "I'm pissed off that I'm reluctantly concerned," Seto interrupted, "Where the hell is Kiaba? Isn't he supposed to take the bullet on these things?"

 

Everyone else looked around the store. There was no sign of Kiaba, until Ryouchan pointed to the window, where Kiaba, out on the street and heading right into the heart of the battle, was clearly visible.

 

"What does that idiot think he's doing?!" yelped Seto.

 

" _Jesus Christ Superstar_ ," Ryouchan growled, sounding remarkably like the grumpiest bunny in the universe. "What's it look like? He's 'taking the bullet on this thing.' Or he will, if he doesn't duck in time."

 

Ryou buried his face in his hands and, in a plaintive voice, begged, "If this is my brain on drugs, could someone please hit me with a frying pan?"

 

 


	12. A Wild Sue Appears! She Uses Purple Prose! It's Super Effective!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yami's personal threat level goes to Def-Con Fangirl.
> 
> The boys escape the bookstore only to find it's "out of the frying pan, into the fire."
> 
> And how many cookies can Ryou eat before he winds up in a sugar coma?

Chapter 12: 

A Wild Sue Appears! She Uses Purple Prose! It's Super Effective!

 

While Yugi and company watched from the bookstore window, Kiaba dashed across the street, zigging and zagging to avoid weapons' fire from both directions, and finally disappeared into the besieged bakery.

 

"He made it!" Joey cheered and clapped Seto on the shoulder. "You should be proud of the guy."

 

"A lucky moron is still a moron." Seto turned his back on the window and pinned Yami with a scowl. "What now?"

 

"Why are you asking _him_?" Yugi demanded. Sure, Yami was the heavy-hitter of the group, but, "I'm the one who comes up with the plans!"

 

"How's that working out for you?" Ryouchan asked.

 

"Watch it," Yami growled. "That's my partner you're insulting."

 

Ryouchan flipped him the bird. Somehow, he still managed to look improbably angelic.

 

"Hey, there's somebody else out there!" Joey exclaimed, pointing at the street, where two teenaged girls had just strolled into view. "Two somebodies, even."

 

Yugi ran for the door. Sticking his head through the opening while simultaneously exposing as little of his body to potential gunfire as possible, he yelled, "It's not safe out there! Get off the street!"

 

One of the girls, the more glittery of the two, beamed at them. The other, dressed like an escapee from Hot Topic, yawned. The glittery girl grabbed her somber friend by the elbow and tugged her toward the bookstore.

 

For some reason, Yami's personal threat level shot up to Def-con Fangirl. His paranoia was justified when, immediately upon entering the bookstore, the sparkly girl engulfed Yugi in a full-body, Velcro koala hug.

 

"Oh my god!" she squealed. "You're even cuter in person!"

 

Reaching out, Yami peeled the girl off Yugi and interposed his own body between them. "I don't believe we've been introduced," he said, in a tone that heavily implied she should keep her everything to herself.

 

"I'm Princessa Angelica Glitterati Unicornia Hikari. I'm seventeen and my hair is naturally this color--" She fluffed her multi-colored tresses. "--and my eyes change color depending on my mood, and I'm half-unicorn. Also, I have cat ears."

 

Her companion turned incredulous eyes on her. " _What_? Since when?"

 

"Since now. It's cute."

 

Sure enough, now that he looked more closely, Yami could see a pair of fluffy pink cat ears poking up through the girl's ridiculously poofy hair. The effect was less "cute" and more "hackles-raising."

 

"Wait," Joey said. "Why would a half-unicorn have cat ears?"

 

"I used to be a three-quarters-mermaid, but I stopped because unicorn catgirls are cuter."

 

The silence which followed this pronouncement hovered there with its metaphorical eyes glued to the ceiling, trying to pretend it hadn't heard a thing and didn't speak English anyway, so why were they all looking at it like that, _jeez_?

 

Finally, Seto said, "There is so much wrong with that sentence."

 

"You get used to her." The other girl rolled her eyes, and then stuck out her hand for Yugi to shake. (Still stunned by Princessa, he did so on automatic pilot.) "I'm Rio Heliotrope E'bony Star Pegasus."

 

"We're identical twin sisters!" Princessa chirped.

 

More silence descended, as everyone looked between the two girls. Princessa was short and curvy, with an olive complexion, rainbow colored hair, and indeterminate eye color. Everything she was wearing glittered. And, let's not forget, she had _pink cat ears_.

 

Rio, on the other hand, was tall, thin, and as pale as a snow sculpture of an albino flamingo. Her white skin stood out starkly against her black attire. Her one concession to color was dark purple, heavily applied as eyeshadow and nail polish. Her one redeeming quality (appearance-wise) was, in Yami's opinion, that at least all her visible body parts seemed to be human.

 

"You're _identical_ _twin_ _sisters_ ," Yugi said, in the slow manner of a man testing out the words as they passed his lips.

 

"Yep!"

 

"You're identical twin sisters _who look nothing alike_."

 

"Yes."

 

"You're identical twin sisters who look nothing alike _and have different last names_."

 

"We have different fathers," Princessa said placidly. "And we're actually identical triplets. Our other sister isn't here. And, anyway, she likes to pretend she's an orphan."

 

"I think we should all back away slowly and try not to make eye contact," Tristan said, suiting actions to words.

 

"No! You can't _leave_ ," Princessa said, stomping her foot. "You have to stay here and fall in love with me."

 

"What, _all of us_?" Joey's eyes bugged. "Have you been eatin' the 'special' brownies?" Then his eyes unfocused as the thought of tasty chocolate goodness derailed his freak-out. " _Mmm_. Brownies..."

 

Tristan smacked him. "Focus!"

 

"I am! I'm focused on brownies!"

 

Yami narrowed his eyes at the girls. "What makes you think any of us are even attracted to you, much less going to fall in love with someone we've known less than five seconds?"

 

"Because that's what always happens, _duh_." Princessa pointed at her sister. "Show them!"

 

Smirking, Rio sidled up to Seto. "You're in love with me."

 

Seto snorted. "You're delusional."

 

With a put-upon sigh, she pulled out a tiny, gold-colored derringer and fired it, point-blank, at Seto. Instead of a bullet, a cloud of purple glitter exploded from the gun and engulfed the startled CEO. He immediately softened his stance, leaning toward Rio and giving her a big, goofy grin.

 

"There! _Now_ , you're in love with me." She patted him on the chest. "Good boy. Now prove your wonton desire for me--"

 

("' _Wonton_?'" whispered Ryou.

 

"Maybe she thinks he's soup-sexual," Tristan whispered back.)

 

"--by buying me a new car," Rio continued, shooting the two whisperers a dirty look. For his part, Seto continued to smile dopily and didn't appear to notice anything but her.

 

"Okay."

 

"A really expensive new car."

 

"Okay."

 

"No, make that _two_ really expensive new cars. With shiny purple paint jobs and solid gold rims."

 

"Okay."

 

Everyone watched this exchange with varying degrees of horror.

 

"So, how exactly did ya magic roofie him, anyway?" Joey demanded. "Seto Kaiba ain't _never_ been that agreeable." A thought occurred to him. "Is this somethin' anybody can learn? 'Cause if it works without, y'know, the bad touch thing you got happenin' there, it could come in handy--"

 

"Bad Joey! We don't brainwash our friends," Yugi scolded. He snapped his fingers in front of Seto's (...well, he was aiming for Seto's nose, but let's be real; even stretching, Yugi's not reaching _that_ high without a step-stool. So, let's say his...) clavicle. "Seto? Can you hear me?"

 

"Okay."

 

"Ignore them, _koi_ ," Rio said, running her hand over Seto's chest. "We're going to be _very_ happy together. Especially after you throw Mokuba out of the mansion."

 

"Oh--" A tiny glimmer of awareness flickered in Seto's dazed eyes. "--kay...?"

 

"You can't do that!" Yugi objected.

 

"Of course I can," Rio said. "I need all of my _koi_ 's attention, I can't have him wasting his time on a bratty minor character. Right, darling?"

 

"Buh--"

 

"Hush, _koi_." Rio gave him another absent pat. "It's for the best. You'll see."

 

"Um."

 

"And, since you won't be doing something as boring as dueling anymore, I want you to get rid of all of your silly little dragon cards."

 

"Oh--" Seto ripped himself away from her roving hands, snarling out, "Oh, _hell_ no!" and heading for the store entrance, trailing bits of glitter as he stomped away. "Screw this! I don't care if I get shot."

 

"If you're goin' to the bakery, have them send over some brownies!" Joey called after him. "Or cupcakes! I'm too hungry to be picky!"

 

Seto made a rude gesture, shoved the door open so hard it slammed into the wall behind it, and sprinted out into the street.

 

The others, except for the two girls, plastered themselves against the display window. (Well, the girls and Yugi. _He_ hopped irritably up and down, in a mostly futile effort to peer over the shoulders of his taller companions.)

 

"Did he make it?" he demanded, a bit breathless from all the jumping.

 

"Yeah." Tristan leaned against the wall beside the window, a contemplative expression settling over his face. "You know, whoever's firing that gun, they're not a very good shot. Kiaba's the only person who's actually been hit, and that was by Emo. And why hasn't anyone called the cops?"

 

"Earth logic doesn't apply to their kind," Dupli-Yami whispered, pointing surreptitiously at the girls. "And I suspect the other shooter is one of them, too."

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

"In all the darkest haunts of the multiverse, there is no more dreaded creation than the Mary Sue, a pariah even among the denizens of the bad-fic," Dupli-Yami intoned in the Voice of Doom ™. (Usually only heard right before the owner of said Voice delivered a crushing blow in a card duel, possibly involving the words "Exodia" and "obliterate.")

 

Beside him, Ryouchan nodded solemnly. "They're like the black holes of prose. They have the power to warp the narrative around themselves, sucking all light and enjoyment out of a story."

 

Everyone peered at the girls. Rio was picking at her nail polish and looking bored, while her sister simultaneously berated her and texted furiously on a cell phone. Neither of them looked particularly dangerous.

 

"Are you sure about that?" Yugi asked, brow scrunched into a skeptical furrow. "They don't _look_ like evil incarnate..."

 

"True evil never does."

 

"I don't really like the term 'evil.' I prefer...'ethically unfettered,'" said a new voice from the direction of the store entrance.

 

"Sis!" Princessa ran to greet the newcomer with a hug. "You got my text!"

 

"What do you want? I was busy," the newcomer grumbled, shoving her sister away so she could fold her arms and look dour.

 

Princessa pouted. "That _was_ you shooting at everyone and making a fuss, wasn't it? I knew it!"

 

"So did I," Rio said, rolling her eyes. "You're a lousy shot, by the way."

 

"Your face is lousy!"

 

"You're just jealous because I'm hotter than you."

 

"Bitch, please. On a hotness scale, I'm the sun and you're a microwave on the 'popcorn' setting."

 

"I'm not a bitch, I'm just honest."

 

"Oh, you think you're so perfect, don't you? You think you're always right!"

 

"You know..." Rio looked thoughtful. "I used to hate perfect people who're always right, until I found out self-loathing was bad."

 

"You--!"

 

" _Gawd_ , you're both so _rude_." Princessa stepped between them. "Umeta hasn't even introduced herself!"

 

"Fine!" Rio and Umeta chorused. Rio stepped back with an exaggerated bow. "The floor's yours, Sis."

 

Drawing the eye of everyone present, even the bystanders lurking between the rows of bookshelves, Umeta struck a pose. Now that he was looking, Yugi noticed that her outfit was a warped copy of Yami's standard dueling costume: tight leather pants, a fitted muscle shirt, school uniform jacket flaring from her shoulders like a cape, and high-heeled boots.

 

But where Yami favored black and navy blue, Umeta's clothes were in shades of amythest and gold, and glittered faintly in the light. Luxurious locks of red and black hair fell to her waist, golden bangs tumbled about her heart-shaped face, and thick black lashes framed her wide, crimson eyes. A tiny version of Slifer the Sky Dragon curled around her neck like a scaly scarf. An equally miniature Winged Dragon of Ra was barely visible curled up on top of her head, its body nearly lost among the tangle of her hair. A diminutive Obelisk the Tormentor peeked out of her open handbag like the world's weirdest purse-dog.

 

"I am Pharaohess Umeta Anthrax Moonglow Ohmyrah Sennen!" she announced proudly. She frowned when the only response was the faint sound of distant crickets and, closer to, the shuffling of feet as the bystanders lost interest and went back to browsing the books. "Did I mention that I'm Yami's long-lost twin sister, wielder of the Millennium Tiara, and Pharaohess of all Egypt, most of Poughkeepsie, and parts of Des Moines?"

 

Tristan clutched at his head. "I think my brain is trying to escape by crawling out my ears."

 

"I don't _have_ any siblings," Yami muttered to himself as he tried to make sense of that introduction. "Much less a _twin_. And even if I did, they'd be dead, because they would've been born five thousand years ago. Or three thousand." (Multiple canons were difficult enough to deal with without fanon alternate universes entering into it.) He shook his head. "Whatever. _I'm_ only here because I was trapped in the Puzzle until Yugi solved it."

 

"I was trapped in an Item, too!" Umeta declared brightly.

 

"There are only _seven_ Millennium Items," Ryou said firmly. "Believe me, I'd know if there were more."

 

_Damn skippy_ , slurred a tipsy-sounding voice that only Ryou could hear. _You tell 'em, landlord_.

 

"Then how come Umeta has the Millennium Tiara, Rio has the Millennium Derringer, and I have the Millennium Compact?" Princessa asked, arching her carefully plucked eyebrows. She waved the Item in question, a cheap looking mirrored compact that seemed to have been spraypainted gold. There was an Eye of Horus sticker plastered on one side. "That makes _ten_ Millennium Items, not seven. Looks like you can't count, albino boy."

 

" _Albino_ \--?" Ryou sputtered. "I'm a blond!"

 

"Yeah, _yeah_ , yeah!" sang Ryouchan, and then tried to pretend he hadn't. (Whatever. He liked to watch silly 80s movies, okay? It gave him something to do while he was recovering from starring in various bad-fics.) "Um. Has anyone else noticed that the shooting has stopped?"

 

"Duh," sneered Umeta. " _I_ was the one doing the shooting. If I'm in here with you, obviously I'm not out there shooting at that little brat across the street."

 

"Exactly _why_ were you shooting at Emo-Yugi, anyway?" asked Yugi.

 

Umeta immediately began to look shifty. Rio narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, Sis. What was that all about?"

 

"Wait a minute," interjected Joey. "Why are ya callin' her 'sis'? I thought she said she was supposed to be _Yami's_ twin sister?"

 

"Oh, she's our other sister," Princessa said, sounding bored with the whole conversation.

 

"Right. The third identical triplet. That should have been obvious, _since none of you look anything alike or have related surnames_. Naturally, one of you is not only my sister but also from ancient Egypt as well." Yami scrubbed both hands over his face. In a plaintive voice, he added, "When did reality take the last train to Clarksville and why didn't anyone warn me?"

 

"I think Shadi did warn us. Sort of. In his usual cryptic and vague Shadi way," Yugi said. Shadi could have just _said_ someone was monkeying around with reality, but nooooo. That was too straight forward and helpful. There was probably a regulation against being helpful in the Union of Mysterious Spirit Dudes Handbook. And, speaking of Shadi... "We should call him."

 

"Who?"

 

"Shadi. He was pretty vague about..." Yugi side-eyed the "triplets." It occurred to him that it might be for the best if they were kept out of the whole "stop the bad-fic from destroying the multiverse" loop. "...the _thing_. That we need to accomplish... the _other_ thing. All we know is that we need to gather all the... things. He didn't really tell us what we needed to do once we had them all in one place."

 

"Probably a thing," snarked Ryouchan.

 

"Lemme make sure I got this straight," Joey said, holding up his hand and ticking off points on his fingers. "We need all the things to get the thing in order to do the thing. That right?"

 

"I thing, er, _think_ so."

 

Princessa snickered. "It sounds like sports!"

 

Everyone, even her sisters, gave her the "huh?" look. She huffed. "You know, throw the thing, catch the thing, run with the thing, tackle the guy with the thing... Sports!"

 

"If I were tackling the guy with the thing, sports would be the last thing on my mind," Rio said, smirking. (And, on that disturbing note...)

 

"...Yeah, whatever." Yugi had bigger fish to fry than Rio's questionable innuendo. "Does anyone have a working phone?"

 

"Well, _I_ do," Princessa said, tossing her hair and looking put upon. "But you're being mean to me, so I don't see why I should let you use it, no matter how cute you are."

 

"Here," Ryouchan said, thrusting a cell phone into Yugi's hand. "If calling Shadi will speed things along, then, by all means, call him. And then maybe we can all get the Mame out of here." (And he could go home and re-watch "Earth Girls Are Easy.")

 

"Dude, I have to ask," Tristan said. "What's up with the not-really-curse words?"

 

Ryouchan grimaced. "That's just the way they come out."

 

"You mean, you're literally too nice to curse?"

 

"Cats no! I'm not _nice_." The way he said the word made it sound like the worst attribute a person could have. "I'm just written that way."

 

Meanwhile, Yugi was dialing like his sanity depended on it. Unfortunately, when the call connected, it didn't connect with _Shadi_.

 

"Hello," Shadi's recorded voice said. "You have reached the phone of Shadi. I am not available at this time to take your very important call, as I am on a much needed and well deserved vacation. Please leave your name, the name of the Millennium Item in your possession, and a brief message detailing your current crisis after the beep. I will give it all due consideration upon my return home. BEEP!" (And then, because Shadi was no fool, the call immediately disconnected. He was on _vacation_ , damn it, and refused to deal with any of the Item holders or their drama until the cruise ship made it back to port in Domino Bay.)

 

"Crap," Yugi cursed and dialed again. This time, he got a different message.

 

"Welcome to Dial-a-Shadi. To hear this message in English, press 'one,' now. To hear this message in Ancient Egyptian--"

 

He ended the call and thrust the phone back into its owner's hand before he could give in to the temptation to fling the phone at the nearest wall.

 

"No Shadi?"

 

"No Shadi." Yugi huffed out a sigh. "We'll try again, later. In the meantime..."

 

"Plan B?" guessed Joey.

 

"I think we're on, like, Plan D by now," Tristan said. "But if that doesn't work out, the alphabet has twenty-two more letters, so keep calm."

 

"Cut me some slack. It's been a long day."

 

"Dude, pretty sure it's still morning."

 

"Not from where I'm standing," Yami interjected. From his perspective, this day had been about six weeks long already and it wasn't even half over. He sighed. "So, we need a new plan."

 

"Did we actually have an _old_ plan?"

 

"Shut up," Yugi said. "Planning now."

 

"If planning was a food, it'd be cupcakes."

 

"I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you don't stop talking about food--"

 

"You're the one who just brought up airborne pasta!"

 

(Dear sweet Noodle Overlord... Anyway. While our main characters get this latest pointless argument out of their systems, let's check in with Grandpa Mutou, the Dark Magician, and little Prince Atem...)

 

 

-o0o-

 

_At the Finny Friends Pet Shop_...

 

"Sweetheart, the fish _like_ being in their tanks. They don't really enjoy going for walks."

 

SPLASH!

 

_Sigh_. "Let's go look at the turtles..."

 

 

-o0o-

 

(Well, that's going... well.)

 

_We now return to our heroes' plan, already in progress_...

 

"Normally I love it when a plan comes together, but to be honest, I’m still leery of calling this a 'plan.'"

 

"It beats hanging out in there with the Weird Sisters. Also, it appears to be working."

 

"...Point."

 

"All right," Yami said, drawing himself up to his full height. "Let's do this."

 

After that dramatic pronouncement, it was somewhat anticlimactic that "this" was simply pulling open the door to the bakery and walking inside.

 

Steps one through three of Plan D had also been fairly uncomplicated: (1) tell the girls that they (the boys) were all going to the restroom, (2) duck out the back of the book store, sneak around the side of the building, and (3) dash like mad across the street. So far, it seemed to be going smoothly. (Which probably meant that no good could possibly come of it, but sometimes, you had no choice but to "work with what you got" (as Joey pointed out).)

 

Inside the bakery, several small tables provided patrons a place to sit and enjoy the offerings of the pastry counter.Kiaba, Seto, and Emo-Yugi were hunched over one such table, single-mindedly stuffing their faces with morsels plucked from the pile of baked goods in the center. They resembled vultures who had given up carrion for Lent and discovered the wonders of sugary dough, instead.

 

"Cupcakes!" Joey shouted joyfully and dove for the center of the table.

 

" _Aibou_!" Dupli-Yami shouted at the same time and in much the same tone, but aimed _his_ dive for his partner. As he was tackled in an enthusiastic hug, Emo managed an upward twitch of his lips that, on someone less committed to being morose, might have been a smile.

 

"Aw," cooed Tristan in the most saccharine tone he could manage. "It's the Emo version of happily ever after."

 

"Whatever," Yami grumbled and flung himself into the nearest unoccupied chair. "Somebody pass me a damned cupcake."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting in a folder since November. I literally forgot I'd written it. *facepalm*
> 
> For funsies: Spot the Easter eggs! In this case, spot the references (through out the fic, not just this chapter) to my other YGO AUs and comment. First reader with the most references wins a drabble or WIP chapter of their choice.


	13. The Importance of Being Emo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In today's episode, the part of Captain Exposition will be played by Emo-Yugi.
> 
> Eveyone consumes mass quantities. (And make the author crave cupcakes.)
> 
> Things go from 'bad' to 'bad-bad," and someone is challenged to a d-d-duel!

Chapter 13: The Importance of Being Emo

 

 

"All I wanted was one night to bask in my own self-pity! Is that too much to ask?" Emo-Yugi slouched lower in his chair and listlessly picked apart a cruller. "So, I ran. I ran so far away. I just ran -- I ran both night and day! But instead of a pity party, I got kidnapped by assassins, insta-trained, and sent after some nutjob bent on murdering the Pharaoh and taking his place."

 

"Someone's trying to kill me?!" yelped Dupli-Yami, dropping his margarita cupcake. Lime scented buttercream frosting spattered across the table.

 

Joey scraped frosting off his forehead, licked his fingers, then asked, "'Insta-trained?'"

 

"Via training montage. Takes about a minute, minute and a half, tops." Emo turned his attention back to his partner. "Not just you. Him, too."

 

Emo pointed at Yami, who put on his most deadpan expression and monotoned, "Oh, no, someone is trying to kill me. Again." He sighed. "It must be Thursday."

 

"I never could get the hang of Thursdays," Ryou agreed, snagging a cookie, which he sniffed experimentally. "Are these gluten-free?"

 

 _(Forget gluten-free_ , Bakura's mental voice grumbled from his soul room. _Find something that's_ alcohol-ful _. I'm_ still _not drunk enough to deal with any of this shit._

 

Ryou ignored him and bit into the cookie, which crunched pleasantly and filled his mouth with the taste of chocolate, cinnamon, and a hint of cayenne. He wondered if he could get a dozen or so cookies to go before they left.

 

 _And tequila_ , Bakura said. _Much, much tequila_. The sound of empty bottles clinking against one another as the spirit rummaged through them came over their mental connection, accompanied by Bakura's mournful, _Where has all the rum gone?_

 

Ryou foresaw a hangover in his future, unfortunately without the benefit of having actually gotten drunk first. Ironically, the alcoholic spirits he most had to worry about the effects of didn't come in bottles.)

 

"Where the heck did ya run into _assassins_ in Domino City?" Joey wasn't ready to let that go. "I need to know what parts of town to avoid."

 

"Uh." Emo tried to look livelier for a second, before deciding it wasn't worth the effort and slumping even further down in his seat. He gave the remains of his donut a desultory flick with one finger. "Next door, actually."

 

"What's next door?" Joey hadn't paid that much attention earlier, what with the panic and peril to life and limb.

 

Peeling the liner off a muffin, Tristan said, "Mel N. Ium's Coffee Bar on the left and, um, some kind of flower shop across the alley on the right?"

 

"Oh, yes! The florists with the cat on their sign," agreed Ryou. "They have some very attractive... displays...there." He promptly flushed pink and stuffed an entire cookie in his mouth.

 

"Could we get back to the maniac who wants to murder me?" Dupli-Yami scowled at Yami. "How can you be so blasé about this? Somebody wants us dead!"

 

"Yawn," Yami said, not bothering to actually fake a yawn to go with the dry statement. "When _doesn't_ somebody want us dead? Besides, I've been dead. In fact, technically, I _still am_ dead. Or have you forgotten that, until your unannounced arrival in the wee hours of the morning, I was a disembodied spirit stuck in a necklace?"

 

("Oh, crap," whispered Joey, leaning as far away from both Yamis as he could manage at the small table, which put him practically in Tristan's lap. "Does that make him a zombie?"

 

"Don't worry," Tristan said, shoving Joey back upright. "If he suddenly gets the urge for brains, _you'll_ be safe.")

 

"Well, of course you were. You're a yami, Yami." Kiaba said, talking over the interruption, and then side-eyed Seto. "Hey, how come you never hang out in the Millennium Rod, Yami K?"

 

Unconsciously imitating a stunned goldfish, Seto opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then, unable to come up with a suitably scathing retort, he reached over and shoved Kiaba off his chair and onto the floor. Ignoring the stand-in's indignant "hey!", Seto growled, "I am not dead, a disembodied spirit, _or a fucking yami_!"

 

With the angriest attempt at pleading for reassurance anyone at the table had ever seen, Seto pinned Yami with a desperate look and demanded, "Tell me I'm not a yami!"

 

"Were you trapped in a piece of jewelry or emblem of office at any point in your life?"

 

" _No_."

 

"Then you're not a yami."

 

Seto sagged with relief. "Thank god."

 

"You're welcome."

 

"Oh, don't start _that_ again!" Yugi snapped. "I don't have time to find a cow -- or a Slim Jim!"

 

"I'll accept an offering of cupcakes," Yami said magnanimously, eyeing the last of the red velvet cakes, currently perched in the center of Yugi's plate.

 

With a sigh, Yugi shoved it over to Yami, who had already inhaled two Mexican chocolate cookies, a bear claw, three croissants with butter and blueberry chia jam, and a miniature lemon tartlette. "How are you not the size of a house?"

 

"Good metabolism," Yami said around a mouthful of cake. Licking frosting from his lips, he added, "It probably doesn't hurt that I haven't eaten in several millennia."

 

Arms crossed over his chest, Emo sulked at them. "Could we talk about _my_ problems now? I mean, I'm _sure_ Yami's hollow leg and Seto's delusions of non-yamihood are _infinitely_ more important than my angst--" His tone said this was clearly not the case and everyone else should get with the program. "--but there are more important things to worry about right now!

 

"I mean, being an assassin isn't as glamorous as movies and video games make it out to be, you know. It can be expensive paying for all the pistils and ammo seeds, and that training montage was seriously the toughest minute-and-a-half of my life... And I've been in the Yugioh equivalent of _My Immortal_! Assassination is also pretty hard on the wardrobe. Ever seen what happens when you whack a Sue? No? Well, let's just say, good luck getting the glitter out of your clothes any time before the _next_ millennium."

 

"Wait... Why were you assassinating Sues?" Ryouchan asked, taking interest in something other than pastries for the first time since he'd sat down. "Not that I object, mind you. I'm just wondering why _that's_ what you've been doing."

 

"It's what I was hired to do," Emo said, with a shrug. "Besides, they were going to go after _my_ yami."

 

"And _mine_ ," Yugi reminded him, looking as if he'd bitten into something sour. (Oh, wait. He had. He put down the Sour Patch donut.) "Why are Mary Sues trying to murder our yamis?"

 

"Because one of them is a _Copycat_ Sue," Emo said ominously, then fell silent, as if that one phrase explained everything.

 

"Ah-hah." Apparently, to Ryouchan it did.

 

"Care to elaborate?" Yami asked, though he looked more interested in the plateful of cookies that Ryou was attempting to stuff in his pockets.

 

"Yeah, how bad is it?"

 

Ryouchan shuddered. " _Bad_."

 

"Bad-bad or just bad?" Joey asked.

 

"Bad-bad."

 

"Ooh, that's bad, all right. Bad-bad bad is the baddest bad."

 

"Stop saying 'bad' or I will stab you with this fork."

 

Ignoring the scuffle taking place on the other side of the table, Yugi focused his attention on the more pressing situation. "What's so ba-- uh, not good about Copycat Sues?"

 

"They're like warped copies of the people they imitate. And they only exist to take the place of the character they're emulating."

 

Seto snorted. "Yeah, that doesn't sound like _anyone else_ we know, _at all._ " He cocked a judgy eyebrow at his stand-in.

 

"We're not like them at all!" Kiaba protested around a mouthful of red velvet cake. A stress eater, Kiaba had been foregoing the discussion for determinedly shoving as many cakes, cookies, and donuts into his pie-hole as possible, but he couldn't let his yami think the worst of him. "We're helpful! We just take your places in the bad-fic, so you don't have to be there."

 

"For which we're very grateful," Yugi assured him. He was sure he was going to have nightmares about that damned fish tail. He resolved to send any future therapy bills to Shadi.

 

"But isn't that the same thing? Fillin' in for us?" Joey asked.

 

"None of us want to stab you in the face, bury you in a shallow grave, and pretend you never existed," Emo pointed out. "Bad as they are, we're still the main characters in our own narratives; we don't need to off you and take over yours."

 

"Wait," Yugi said. "So, you mean that weird girl with the teeny tiny god card dragons--?"

 

"Is plotting to murder our yamis, yes."

 

"Just once," Yami sighed, "I'd like to meet someone who wanted to challenge me to a nice cup of tea and a friendly game of Go Fish."

 

Yugi frowned. "This is all Shadi's fault, isn't it?"

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 _We interrupt this exposition to bring you_...

 

A Brief List of Things That Are Not, in Fact, Shadi's Fault

 

  1. Climate change. (No, _really_ , Yami. Give it up.)



 

  1. Leisure suits.



 

  1. That wacky Tombkeeper scarification ritual. (Though he was totally the reason Malik blamed it all on the Pharaoh, instead of Malik's crazypants dad.)



 

  1. Crystal Pepsi.



 

  1. Evanescence.



 

  1. The existence of Copycat Sues.



 

 _We now return you to your originally scheduled exposition, already in progress_.

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

"No." As much as it irked him to admit it, even Yami couldn't pin the blame for this one on Shadi. However, "That voice-mail thing, though? _Totally_ his fault."

 

"Well, yeah. It's his voicemail."

 

"Eat your damn brownie and let the grown-ups talk." Tristan flicked Joey's ear, hard. "So, how do we stop the Terrible Trio?"

 

"If I knew that, I could retire to Tahiti," Ryouchan said. He turned to Emo. "You having any luck?"

 

"I can take them out with my pistils, but it's only temporary." Emo sighed. "Eventually, they re-spawn, sometimes even worse than before. And they multiply. So it's like cutting the head off a hydra: you start with one and end up with seven."

 

"So," Tristan said. "What're the odds of us getting out of this in one piece?"

 

"About the same as Seto spontaneously deciding to give up dueling to go live in a Tibetan monastery," Dupli-Yami said.

 

"Wow. We're doomed."

 

"You could be more optimistic, you know," Joey said.

 

"Optimism just means you don't have all the pertinent information."

 

Emo leaned over and bumped his shoulder against Dupli-Yami's. "Don't worry, partner. I'll protect you."

 

" _Aw_ ," cooed a newly familiar (and entirely unwelcome) voice from the doorway. "You're so cuuute!"

 

"Don't call me cute!" Emo objected. "I'm a fierce assassin with special killing people skills!"

 

"You're so _adorable_!" Princessa clapped her hands with glee as she practically danced into the bakery, her sisters trailing behind her. She looked back at them and squee'd. "Look, it's another Yugi! I want one! Don't you want one?"

 

"Yes, Prin, I think we already agreed on a suitable kidnapping scheme." Rio rolled her eyes, a move made all the more dramatic by her heavily applied eyeliner. "And, lucky us, since there are two of them now, we won't have to work out a time share."

 

"But their yamis might not approve. So, we'll have to put that on hold until we've dealt with the problem," Umeta added ominously. "Then you guys can have the Yugis and I'll take the Pharaoh's place in all the stories. Everybody wins!"

 

The three of them stalked toward the boys, spreading out to surround them like sharks circling their prey.

 

"Oh, god," Tristan groaned. "They're like those birds... What're they called? You know, the ones that circle around waiting for you to die?"

 

Staring at Rio, attired in all her purple and black glory, Joey hazarded a guess. "Vampires?"

 

Tristan head-desked. (Well, head- _tabled,_ technically.) The assorted crockery rattled at the impact of his forehead on the Formica. He rolled his head to the side so he could glare at Joey. "You know that thing you do where you open your mouth and sounds come out?"

 

"Talking?"

 

"Yeah, that. Don't do that."

 

Joey kicked him in the ankle. "The vampires are circling, man. Either help with the defenses or I'm shooting you in the knee and making a run for it while they're too busy tearing you apart to notice."

 

"Hey! I thought we agreed: no Shaning anyone in the group!"

 

"That agreement is only binding during a zombie apocalypse. In case of vampires, it's every man for himself."

 

"I'm not an icky old _vampire_ ," Princessa objected, making a sour face. "Vampires aren't _cute_ , not even the sparkly ones. I'm a half-unicorn catgirl princess, former three-quarters-mermaid!" She looked thoughtful for a second. "And maybe half elf. Or fairy. Which would be cuter?"

 

Rio face-palmed. "You can't be half unicorn, half elf, and half cat."

 

"Why not?" Princessa turned to Umeta. "Tell her I can be half unicorn, half elf, half cat, and half fairy if I wanna!"

 

"You can be whatever you want to be," Umeta assured her.

 

"No, she can't. Four 'halves' make two whole people!"

 

"Ooh!" Princessa bounced on her toes and clapped her hands. "I could be twins!"

 

Stunned Silence was back and, this time, it had brought it's own twin: Judgmental Staring.

 

"...What?" Princessa pouted. "I can be twins if I wanna!"

 

"Shut up," Umeta and Rio said in perfect unison.

 

"No!" Princessa lifted her chin in a show of obstinacy. "I can talk if I wanna. Why are you always telling me not to talk?"

 

"'Cause all you do is talk. You never _listen_."

 

"I _do_ listen. I listen to everyone telling me how cute I am." Princessa crossed her arms and, nose in the air, added, "And I'd be twice as cute as twins!"

 

"You're already a triplet!" Yami exploded. He had dealt with warped duelists, wanna-be world-dominators, and wacky relatives, but there was only so much weird a man could take. "You can't be a twin _and_ a thrice-damned triplet!"

 

Princessa burst into sparkling tears (seriously, they glinted with tiny little rainbows) that cascaded down her damask cheeks and left her looking even cuter than before (in _her_ opinion, anyway, and that was the only one that mattered). She wailed, "You're a meany poopyhead!" and, sobbing, flung herself into Rio's arms. Rio glared at Yami.

 

"Nobody talks like that to my sister!" Umeta declared. Jacket-cape flaring in a non-existent wind, she jabbed a finger dramatically at Yami and shouted, "I challenge you to a duel!"

 

 _Dun, dun, DUN_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	14. Duh-duh-dueling Egos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to d-d-d-duel!

Chapter 14: Duh-duh-dueling Egos

 

 

Unlike practically every other building in Domino City, the bakery was not equipped with a dueling arena, so the combatants had to make do with a cleared table in the center of the room. While Yami and Umeta faced off, the others surrounded them to watch the duel and cheer them on -- all except Ryouchan, who had wandered over to the pastry counter and was trying to decide between gluten-free Hamantaschen and vegan Lebkuchen (it was a painfully trendy bakery), while only half-listening to the game taking place behind him.

 

"I play Infinite Wardrobe Description!" Umeta declared with all the melodrama of a born duelist.

 

Yami yawned and countered with Mirror-Check Force.

 

Posing like she was auditioning for a _Saturday Night Fever_ remake, Umeta equipped her Feminine Wiles card with Come-Hither Eyes.

 

Yami rolled his eyes and destroyed her Wiles with Slash Goggles, then used his Snark Magician to send her Authoress Bias into a Bottomless Plot Hole.

 

"I play Made of Awesome, whose special ability lets me shift this duel into an alternate universe where I'm winning!" Umeta shouted, slapping the card onto the field. "And now I will--"

 

"My Unreliable Narrator cancels the effect of your Made of Awesome!" Yami interrupted, flipping the card in question over and smirking the smirk of one who knows he has the unassailable upper hand. (Besides, there was only one person in this duel who was legit 'made of awesome', and it sure as hell wasn't Umeta.)

 

"B-but how?" she stammered. "You…you can’t do that! I was mid-gloat and everything!”

 

"I'm the star of the damn show; I can do anything I want." Yami smirked. "And _no-one_ is allowed to be cooler than me."

 

(Seto leaned over to whisper to Emo, "Can _I_ pay you to kill him?"

 

Emo gave a listless shrug and nibbled on a rose-flavored Nan-e Nokhodchi cookie.

 

"I'll double your usual fee."

 

Emo appeared to consider the offer.

 

Two seconds later, after Umeta had attempted to summon her Sue-Eyes White Dragon, Seto growled, "On second thought, I'll pay you _triple_ to kill _her_.")

 

Assassination (at any price) turned out to be unnecessary, however, as Yami's smirk had turned positively evil. He announced, "I've assembled all the pieces. Now, I summon the unstoppable... Expositionodia! Its special ability enables me to talk my opponent to their ultimate defeat!"

 

"No! This cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!" Umeta declared -- and promptly burst into a shower of multicolored glitter. The cards she had been holding fluttered to the floor.

 

(Abandoned, the three miniature god-card creatures scampered across the floor to Yugi, who broke a cupcake into three equal pieces and offered one to each of them. The little monsters gazed up at him with shining, anime heart-eyes.)

 

The cashier leaned over the check-out counter and yelled, "Hey! One of y'all better clean that sparkly shit up."

 

Seto glared at her. "Don't you work here? Isn't cleaning up after customers _literally_ your job?"

 

"I'm not your mom," she sneered. "And my job description does not include sweeping up Edward Cullen puke."

 

He flicked a glance at her name-tag, which read 'Darly.' Next to it on her staff apron, a large button boasted 'I'm happy to help you!' in an obnoxiously cheerful font. He raised a significant eyebrow at her.

 

"The badge may read 'happy to help', but the badge is a liar and I'd like for all y'all to go far, far away," Darly said. She cocked a significant eyebrow of her own at the pile of glitter. "After you clean up that shit."

 

"Hey! That's our sister you're calling 'shit,' lady!" Rio snapped. "Watch your mouth!"

 

Princessa was frowning down at the pile of glitter and poking it with the toe of her shoe. "We should probably sweep her up, though." She sighed. "But manual labor will just _ruin_ my manicure."

 

"I'll do it," Emo said, surprising everyone. He grabbed the dust pan and brush Darly thrust at him and scurried over to sweep up the glitter. Darly offered him a paper bag bearing the bakery's logo, and Emo emptied the dust pan into it, crumpled the top of the bag to keep the glitter from escaping, and then crammed the bag into his pocket. "Let's go!"

 

He barreled toward the door, stopping only long enough to snag Dupli-Yami's arm and drag him along. "Hurry!"

 

And then he and Dupli-Yami were out the door and running down the street.

 

"...Da fuck?" Joey said, succinctly summing up the question on everyone's minds.

 

Rio snapped out of her surprise first. "That little twerp stole Umeta!" She ran out after Emo and Dupli-Yami.

 

"Wait for me!" Princessa shouted, and went after her.

 

"Uh..." Joey looked around at the others. "What should we do, now?"

 

Darly popped her gum and offered, pseudo-helpfully, "I gotta mop around here somewhere. Or there's, like, a ton of dirty dishes in the back. If y'all're lookin' for somethin' to do."

 

Everyone ignored her.

 

Everyone except Ryouchan, who ordered a loaf of challah and a pint of jam to go.

 

 

-o0o-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
